


The Adventures of Coal and Nick

by Mercyisnotasignofweakness, Shivra



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Bio-Weapon gone wrong, Biological Warfare, Blood and Gore, But they are not really zombies, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, It's the apocalypse, MORE WARNINGS AND TAGS WILL BE ADDED WHEN NEEDED, Massive number of deaths, Minor Character Death, Parasite infected zombies, Possible future mentions of uncomfortable subjects, Post Pacifist Apocalypse AU, Roleplay Logs, Science has gone too far, graphic description of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:46:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9646865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercyisnotasignofweakness/pseuds/Mercyisnotasignofweakness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shivra/pseuds/Shivra
Summary: After Mt. Ebott cracks wide open, a human and a monster forge an unusual alliance 
as an already scarred and fractured world begins to change once again.NB! This is an Undertale RP log, not a normal fic/story! Look at the tags!





	

**Author's Note:**

> ##### Hey there!
> 
> **So, you're interested in our little RP? Awesome! Here's some quick disclaimers and notes before you can get to the good stuff.**
> 
> 1\. Obviously, since this is an RP between Shiv and myself, there's no update schedule. We write when we want and when another part is done we will upload it. It might only take a week, or it might take a few years. No one knows.  
> 2\. There is a planned plot for this RP and a few ideas as to where we want it to go, but it's all improvised and can change at a moment's notice. So if there's suddenly stuff that doesn't make sense? Welp, too bad. We probably changed that to open up for something else to happen. It's 100% self-indulgent and we will do what we want and like. :)  
> 3\. We will NOT take suggestions and prompts for this story.  
> 4\. This is not written with you as the reader in mind, so there might be situations where you are confused about what is going on. If that happens, then sorry! If you have questions then just send us a message or leave a comment, but no promises.  
> 5\. This RP is not uploaded for any reason other than sharing what we think is a great story with you.  
> 6\. Make sure you look at the tags and make sure you are okay with the themes that might appear in this story. It's an apocalypse setting and both me and Shiv enjoy being graphic in our descriptions of angst and fight scenes. There will be a lot of typical violence seen in a good, bloody horror movie. Don't read this if you are sensitive to any of the topics warned about in the tags. If you read this story you are doing it at your own risk. We take no responsibility for any triggers you might find - but we will try to tag as best as possible.  
> 7\. Our sections will be obvious and marked with our name. So if a sections starts with a small "Mercy" before it, that means it's me who wrote it and the other way around for Shiv. But as a general guideline, I write my OC Nick's POV and Shiv writes her OC Coal/Cabernak's POV.
> 
> And that's it! Enjoy the read and thank you for taking your time to read these notes! :D

## ~ ~ PART ONE ~ ~  
Unfortunate Circumstances

 

**_Mercy_ **

Nick is not a stranger to pain. It is a completely inevitable part of her life: from the blisters covering whatever skin that isn’t occupied by hard calluses on her feet, to scrapes and cuts on her hands, the permanent black bruises on her right knee and the constant aching, throbbing pain in her overused muscles. Like the sting of a fresh bruise smoldering just underneath her skin. She’s used to pain. For her, it’s a daily reminder that she is still fighting, that she is still alive. Pain is a companion she likes to travel with. It keeps her mind clear and her determination strong. Pain means that there is still time to right old mistakes.

Mornings are always the most difficult part of her day. Waking up is never a pleasant feeling and since food is scarce, breakfast is no feast, but the actual pain starts, when she begins her wandering. She has a strict schedule and going off track is taking risks she can’t afford. So she forces herself to get up and get moving, keeping her goal at the forefront of her consciousness and just has to take one step at a time. Breaking through “the wall of pain” - as her father used to call the point where the body begs for a rest - is never easy, but once she does she’ll be in the clear.

It’s around the first hour mark after she starts walking that she feels the first unhappy twitches of her muscles. The pain starts slow, the burn dull and almost ignorable at first. It soon grows into something almost unbearable, a strong sting piercing through to her conscience no matter what thoughts she occupies her head with. She has to withstand the temptation of giving in to the burn from the first second, or she’ll be overwhelmed far too quickly.

Instead of stopping she clenches her jaw and endures it. She keeps her mind occupied by focusing on the rough texture of the cracked, scorched dirt ground under her boots. She keeps moving, one foot in front of the other. It takes just 2036 steps to walk a mile and each step brings her closer to that sweet, sweet numbness that will make sure her day does not waste away.

It takes thirty minutes before the pain slowly ebbs out and for it to be replaced by the blessed numbness of overuse. When that moment hits she pulls her backpack’s straps tighter around her shoulders and gives her trusted M24 a loving pat before she picks up the pace. She wants to get clear of this mountain before midday and - if she’s really lucky - reach the settlement near its southern foot before the shadows grow too long.

The trip is uneventful and she passes the midway point - the highest point on the ridge - just after noon. She’s behind schedule and it annoys her, but she just has to keep going. It’s all she can really do.

There’s not much to do or look at out here in the wilderness. What she imagines was once a prolific nature spot is little more than dry twigs, brown leaves and thick, almost impenetrable thorny undergrowth. Had it not been for the established and maintained traders’ trail, she would have had a hard time getting through this area. But luckily for her the settlements around here seem to have leaders with more brains than the usual wastelander, because they have made a big deal out of securing the trading paths between them. That means pristine condition goods and supplies in all five settlements nestled in the valleys around the mountain, _and_ clean passable trails cutting straight through all the rough terrain, making travelling easy.

Nick just counts herself lucky that they haven’t thought about putting control points up yet and asking for money from the people who use the trails. Maybe it’s because so few rarely use it, or perhaps she’s just the only one diving head-first into those pre-war books she occasionally finds that all speak of “taxes”. Whatever it is, Nick feels lucky that she won’t have to waste Tabs on silly things like using a trail that’s already here, like the pre-war people did. Or like they do in the Capital. She still can’t believe that people actually pay to live in that damn city. No amount of “security” is worth that kind of restriction and surveillance. Or that kind of money.

She’s walking in her own thoughts, her fingers absently playing with the strings of Tabs dangling from her belt when she hears the first whisper of voices. Normally, voices would have calmed her to some extend. Talking means people, not ferals, and she can usually just ignore them or outrun them if it turns out to be bandits. Although, she can _usually_ hear when it’s that too. Bandits have a certain way they talk. They’re always crude, prideful without reason and beyond lewd.

What makes her stop is the _amount_ of voices. Hundreds, by the sound of it. Now, that is dangerous and really uncommon. That amount of people might mean a settlement has been raided by one of the big gangs and if that is the case, then the survivors will be angry, cautious and easily riled up. All good reasons to stay the fuck away.

She pulls back and puts distance between herself and the voices, choosing to climb back up the steep side of the mountain she just came down from. It will give her the best position to observe and the best position to defend herself if it comes to it.

She finds a great spot, just underneath the exposed roots of an old dead tree. The small cage of dead roots will provide a small amount of protection in case someone should try and sneak up on her, and she has the perfect view over the valley.

The M24 slides off her shoulder easily and she presses it close to her body. The stock presses against her shoulder in a familiar way and immediately she feels a bit calmer. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of a weapon stock resting against her shoulder.

She quickly lines up the scope with her eye. As soon as her gaze starts combing the area for any threats, her breathing slows, her breaths growing long and controlled. Her mind quiets when it focuses on the task at hand.

It takes a few moments of adjusting her grip and the magnification of her scope, plus a few minutes of searching, but eventually she finds the source of the voices.

It’s… She can’t really explain what she is seeing. Old stories from pre-war history books flash through her mind when her eyes study the beings gathered in front of a small cave opening in the side of the mountain. It looks like they are setting up a camp and for some reason that makes Nick’s stomach clench uncomfortably. They are way too exposed there if someone comes down that trail. They could be in big trouble.

She is just about to enhance the zoom on her scope to study the beings closer when a rustle of dead leaves sounds next to her. She freezes and holds her breath, hoping it’s just a wild dog or a bird. Maybe it won’t even notice her if she stays quiet enough.

She isn’t that lucky. Whatever it is, it sounds _far_ too heavy to be just a simple dog when it comes closer to her.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak was one of the first to leave when the Barrier was broken. Being an amphithere of few possessions, he’d bid his heartfelt goodbyes to his family and promised to visit often. Even if they hadn’t really understood his obsessive desire to leave the Underground, they were supportive of his choice.

He’d left his cave and collection of various Human novels to a favorite, like-minded sibling from a later clutch who, still being unfledged, was very upset at being unable to come with him. She’d spewed a gout of flame at his chest for his audacity and was very close to throwing a screeching tantrum when he hurriedly promised to accompany her just past the Barrier for a few hours before he set off on his own. Though this mollified her for the moment, she’d made it clear that she was still mad at him.

They’d left the Barrier for the first time together, with Cabernak smuggling her out while she was wrapped securely around his neck.

He’d dreamed of all of the interesting things he’d get to see for as long as he could remember, but this first glimpse of daylight was unlike anything he could have ever expected. The two amphitheres emitted an almost identical, excited high-pitched whine as they beheld the glorious morning sun.

Cabernak let his sister down, and they both excitedly began tumbling rocks down the mountainside, using their dextrous wing-claws to poke and prod at every plant and bush, and slithering after an unfortunate rabbit that had caught their attention. Eventually they tired out, and ended up resting in the boughs of the tallest tree they could find, simply staring out over the gorgeous view surrounding Mt. Ebott.

The chilliness compared to Hotland - though not as bad as Waterfall - was thin and quite noticeable to him. It seemed so for his sister as well. She didn’t complain, but seemed very keen on resting as close to his internal body heat as she could. Hers wasn’t as developed as his, and as such, he knew their time together was drawing to a close.

Tired and satisfied as she was, she allowed herself to be carried back through the mountain to her home cave. As she nodded off to sleep while he fluttered through Hotland’s thermal currents, he’d reassured her with promises of new Human books and his own stories whenever he visited. Perhaps someday, she’d follow his proverbial footsteps. Until then, he’d be able to impress her with all of the adventures he would undoubtedly have on the Surface.

-

Returning through the Barrier the second time proved more difficult, as the traffic flow to the Surface has picked up due to the monsters from the further cave systems finally reaching the Capital. He spends some time fidgeting in the crowd before he’s free into the open air again.

It’s mid-day when he sees the sun for the second time, and the chilliness of the morning is almost unnoticeable. It certainly isn’t home, but the freshness of the air is new and exciting, as well as rich with the scents of different ores. He ignores his nose for the moment, however, as he’s keen on seeing his first Human.

Frisk. He’s unsure of how he knows the name, but it’s lodged in his brain as surely as his own. They had broken the Barrier and set Monsterkind free. The least he can do is thank them, right? He makes his way towards the center of the camp, where it seems all of the commotion originates from. He still hasn’t gotten used to how spongy the ground feels up here. It’s like Wetland, but without all of the sticky moisture that liked to cling to his scales. He decides that he likes it.

Already, tents have been erected by families of monsters who planned to build a permanent residence outside of the mountain. Cabernak cocks his head this way and that, and bright, baby blue eyes drink in the bustle and the excited talking while he searches. He nearly trips a few people with latter section of his tail before finally stopping to chatter at an amused minotaur who points him in the direction of a tent emblazoned with the Delta Rune. Eagerness overwhelms him, and he’s about to poke his head inside - after all, every cave has an open door - but a fuzzy hand blocks his snoot before it even makes an inch inside the flaps.

The spines down his back give a standing ovation of surprise as he realizes that the hand is connected to a stern-looking female Boss Monster in royal purple. “Hello your majesty!” he chirps, voice pitching a bit high.

He knows of all of the stories. What monster doesn’t? This could only be the missing Queen. That, and he’d heard that Queen Toriel had already left the mountain from the rumors the crowd had been throwing around earlier.

He arches back from the hand and looks up at the owner, his spines smoothing down at her expression. She’s staring at him like he’d been caught doing something particularly naughty. She had apparently been keeping guard of the tent… and he hadn’t even noticed.

“The child is resting right now,” she says in a soft but reproving tone. “They have had a long day and need their sleep. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Oh I just,” he returns, tilting his head down a bit diagonally in his hunched s-curve, “you know, wanted to thank the Human for freeing us.” He reaches forward a little hesitantly, softly clicking the first two digits of his wing-claws together just before his chest. “I’ve... never seen a Human before,” he says hopefully, bobbing his head a little as he speaks in a small gesture of submissiveness. Toriel reminds him of his mother, and that terrifies him somewhat. She might not have scales, but the aura she radiates is the very same. He certainly does not want to make her angry.

Luckily, it seems that she senses his innocent motives and her serious demeanor relaxes into a warm smile. “You can return later when the child is awake - we plan to hold a celebration tonight to honor Frisk and commemorate our freedom. They will have the chance to meet you there, little stoneshaper, as well as every other monster who wishes to thank them.”

Cabernak positively beames, his spines rising to half-mast in his excitement. “Yes, okay!” Toriel’s finger came up quickly to shush him, eyes darting in the direction of the tent flaps and then back to him. “Oh, sorry. Yes. I’ll be back later. Thank you, Queen Toriel.” He gives her a last bob of his head, this time a bit lower, and hooks his two foremost wing-claws in front of his chest to denote his species’ version of a formal bow.

He takes his leave quickly, determined to use the rest of the day to find an interesting thing to give to the Human for the celebration. He hadn’t seen anything too out of the ordinary in the forest while he’d been playing with his sister, but then again, he hadn’t really been looking, either. And he’d been on the ground, too! Certainly he’ll have a better vantage point from the air, and who knows how high he’ll be able to go, now that there are no ceilings? It’s almost terrifying with how open the sky is.

Scaling a tree on the edge of a clearing to use as a launching point, he opens his mouth to test the air. Wind is something he’d felt before, but this particular wind has a very weak quality to it that’s making him a touch nervous. But he was never one to back down from a challenge, and today is going to be no different. He prepares himself by hanging most of his body below the branch, only gripping the top with the last few feet of his tail. Coiling himself backwards, he tenses before launching himself forward and up into the wind, snapping out his wings as he does so.

He beats at the air furiously at first, scrambling for purchase above the ground fifteen feet below. It’s difficult work, but Cabernak quickly finds himself above the treeline at this altitude of the mountain. The wind picks up as soon as he clears the canopy, and he’s pleased to find that he can now glide more often than battle the odd Surface wind. He has to squint some against the nearly blinding light of the midday sun, but finds that he has a good view of the more barren spots on the mountainside. He tips his wings to the side and slides closer to Mt. Ebott, angling one eye towards the ground. He doesn’t want to go too far just yet. Perhaps just test the air. Or…

He inhales, and immediately the scents of iron, chromium and aluminum reach him and remind him pointedly that he hasn’t eaten for a couple days. His wingbeats falter for a moment in surprise and he zeroes in on the direction of the scent. He figures that he must be downwind of a massive ore deposit. It’s good to know that the external part of the mountain is just as rich as it is on the inside. When he smells the scents growing stronger, he backwings onto a flat-looking ridge to get a closer look, scattering a number of small rocks, some dirt and agitating a small lizard. He hasn’t seen anything that looks remotely like ore up here just yet, and the terrain is full of slippery, loose stone and a few overturned trees. It gives him little difficulty, however, as he slides over the crags and dead wood with interest, following his nose. It tells him that there are traces of nickel and copper in the soil, but he’s focused on the stronger scent.

To his confusion, it seems to be coming from beneath one of the dead trees. He squints his eyes as he sticks his face through some underbrush to investigate, and catches a shine of some sort of cut metal poking out from beyond the roots. He leans his face even closer, and extends the tip of his tongue in an attempt to give a curious, delicate lick to the exposed muzzle of the object.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

  
Her hand trembles in the air, her skin tingling. It’s a long, slow slide down along her body but she can’t move too quickly. She has to go slow. With all her training focused on slow combat, patience has always come easy to her, and she will not falter now. It will mean her end and she cannot accept defeat just yet.

Her eyes can’t see anything through the scope, not any longer. She only watches the _tongue_ licking across her precious M24’s metal barrel, listening to the raspy sound as it moves over the polished metal, leaving small scratches on the surface. It makes her stomach turn uncomfortably and gives her an intense desire to wash it thoroughly with the soap in her pack and then spend a few hours polishing it and oiling it up to perfection again.

When her fingers touch the rough sheath strapped to her upper thigh her heart skips a beat in excitement. With practiced ease her fingers flick the button up and they lift the knife out. Her movements are slow in an attempt not to startle whatever is out there. She doesn’t want to be seen as a threat before it’s too late.

She tries to aim her knife upwards, hoping to hit the face of the creature up there. Her stab is clumsy and ineffective: She can feel that it doesn’t hit anything, but it does give her a few precious seconds while the creature is in the middle of avoiding the attack, and that is all she needs.

Nick rips herself off the ground, grips the M24 tightly in her hands, ready to defend herself if it’s needed, and then she _runs_.

* * *

** _Shiv_ **

Cabernak releases a startled squawk as movement bursts from below the dead tree. Sunlight reflects off of an entirely new piece of metal heading for his near eye, and he retracts his face instinctively. The whistle of the knife through the air is unfamiliar to him, but the intent is not. He must have badly startled the creature inside for it to react like that. The form that bursts from below the dead tree in a shower of dead wood certainly gives him even more pause. He squawks a second time as he eyes behold the shape covered in twigs, dirt, and debris.

“Human, wait! I’m sorry I scared you!” he calls out, slithering towards it hurriedly with his spines lowered in distress. When that doesn’t work, he changes tactics. Maybe it’s angry at him? “Please I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to - I didn’t know it was yours! Come back! I-I promise not to lick your stuff again!” He seems to be gaining on the other, as its footing on the uneven ground isn’t as sure as the rabbit he’d been chasing earlier.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

The sound of a voice calling out to her makes Nick pause for just long enough to stumble and fall over her own feet. She crashes into the ground hard and tumbles a ways down the mountain, small pained yelps escaping her lips. When she finally comes to a harsh stop against the side of a fallen over tree on the ground, Nick continues to lie disoriented with closed eyes. Her brain feels liquified and when she attempts to open her eyes to see where the creature is, her vision swims dangerously.

She is not in a panic to get away right now. Talking always means some kind of humanity. It’s the one rule that she never breaks. If it talks then she doesn’t kill it unless it gives her no choice. It means there is a small chance this person - if she can even call a creature like this that - is not hostile. She’s still not calm and she _definitely_ doesn’t trust it, but right now she just has to pray it won’t devour her without second thought. She’s down for the count and can’t possibly fight back when her most important sense has been temporarily robbed from her. Her sight is everything and without it in perfect shape she is helpless. No matter what, if it decided to attack, she’s dead.

It’s taking an awful long time to regain her full sight and Nick grows more nervous by the second. Her vision is still blurred and wobbly. She doesn’t even bother to worry about the sounds of another body stopping close by her. She figures that if she’s not eaten yet, she has time to worry about that later. Right now she needs to worry about her sight. Maybe the hit to the head accelerated the blindness symptoms? Fuck, she hopes not.

How long ago did she take her meds? She can’t see her watch… That only leaves one option.

“You,” she says sternly, hopefully aiming her face in the direction of… whatever it is, “What time is it?”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

He cries out in a warbling panic, following as quickly as he can as the human begins a very ungraceful descent down the mountain. The sounds it makes as it falls cause him to wince repeatedly until it comes to a very pointed stop upon another dead tree... and stops moving.

He fidgets with his wingclaws worriedly as he arrives at the human's side, tilting his head this way and that to get a closer look at it. From what he's read, Humans are not exceptionally resistant to rocks and their lack of scales meant that it is now probably hurt.

“U-uh I don't know any hea-” he begins in a soft, nervous tone, but is abruptly cut off as the human speaks.

He cocks his head to fixate one bright blue eye on its face as it talks, still shaken but somewhat relieved to see that it's still awake. If it's awake, it's probably going to be okay. He releases a soft hum of relief, and his spines return to their normal half-mast.

“It's... uh,” he's slightly taken aback by the question. “It's about midday I think.” It's squinting up at him a bit, likely due to the very bright Surface sun above them. As an afterthought, he edges a bit closer and extends a wing over its body to minimize the rays beating down on it. The leathery membrane is a dark gray color with three segmented spines separating it into sections. With the sun shining through it, small veins of a slightly darker shade form interesting spiderweb patterns throughout it, contrasting sharply with his bright red underbelly.

“I, uh, I'm real sorry about that. I guess humans aren't used to seeing monsters yet. I-I can take you to a healer? I'm sure someone would be happy to look you over. I mean,” he makes a strangled noise that's somewhere between awkward laughter and a groan, “it would look really bad if the first Surface human I found...” He taps his two free wingclaws against the scales on his chest worriedly, and they make a soft clicking noise. “Not that I would ever! I uh... we have this celebration tonight,” he continued, changing tracks quickly. “Because we were just freed from the Underground by Frisk. You could come for that? I could take you...? As an apology?”

Cabernak bobs his head with a touch of hopefulness, switching to look down at the human with his other eye. “Of course, we would get you all healed up first. I'm sorry that you don't have scales,” he says sympathetically.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick stares dumbfounded up at the creature, her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes huge. It seems like all her vision needed was a distraction, because the second she doesn’t intensely worry about it, it slowly flickers into it’s normal sharpness again. Sometimes she really needs to trust herself. She has a watch reminding her to take her meds. She’s fine.

A stray thought circles around her mother. Nick supposes the old lady was right. She _is_ a worrier.

Nick doesn’t know where to look. There’s too much new, all at the same time. From the marble patterned eyes with the thin green line around the pupil watching her make a fool of herself, to the long red and black snakelike body and the _wings_ , she’s stuck staring up at it, unable to understand what could possibly have made something like this.

Was it the bugs? No, it can’t be. She has never seen anything like it before and there are no wandering stories about infected turning into literal beasts. Just acting like them. Plus, the level of intelligence of the infected usually drops dramatically as the mutations set in.

So what is this creature? It obviously intelligent and knows that she’s human. It mentioned freedom… Has it been trapped somewhere? She’s familiar with the old legends about this mountain. It’s impossible not to be when the old cities surrounding it made it their duty to educate everybody by spreading books around like they were lice. Sometimes those books are all she finds when she’s out looking for kindle for her fire. She read one of them once while bored during a thunderstorm that made it impossible to travel.

Shit, she’s been caught up in her thoughts for too long. She needs to say something instead of just staring at it.

“What are you?” is literally the first thing that comes out of her mouth. The desire to facepalm arrives about half a second later. _Yes, Nick. Let’s start the first interspecies conversation by being rude. Good job._ She almost rolls her eyes at herself. Sassing herself in her thoughts must be the first sign of insanity.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

The amphithere is looking at her with increasing worry until she speaks again, at which point he taps his chest a bit more loudly, allowing the clicking noise from both claws to strike upon the scale at once. The ones attached to the wing still shading the human wiggle freely in the air.

“I’m Cabernak, Apprentice Stoneshaper of the Underground,” he says, puffing out his chest a few inches in pride and flaring both his dorsal ridge and tail fin to their fullest extent. “I’m also a newly fledged Surface adventurer. Um,” ridge and fin droop a scant few inches, and he shuts his jaw for a moment in confusion. The inset teeth along the lower and upper halves form a perfectly interlocking set, the view of which the human was likely getting a very accidental show of... considering that he has to stare at them from the side of his face.

“I don’t know what title I should use for that, really. What do you think about Amateur Surface Explorer? Does it sound too cheesy? I haven’t gotten much imput yet.” He folds his unused wing tightly against his side and lowers his head a bit self-consciously. “I haven’t really explored that much of the Surface yet, either. It’s uh. It’s all a bit of a work in progress, you know?”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick lifts an eyebrow at Cabernak - wow what a mouthful - but decides not to say anything. She doesn’t even know where to start deciphering whatever he is trying to tell her, so she follows the advice of an old farmer she once came across: Words are for those who understand their meaning, and those who don’t should remain silent.

He had a lot of good words to live by in this forsaken land, words she remembers like it was just yesterday they sat by the fire, sharing stories over a roasting chicken. _Keep your mouth shut, your head down and the wind at your back. Stay out of sight and out of trouble. Think then act, and most importantly: Survive. No matter the cost._

Nick snorts softly and shakes her head once, willing away the memories of deep wrinkles around kind brown eyes, a steady hand reaching out to her and a smile showing crooked teeth. She gets back on her feet and starts collecting the provisions that fell out of her backpack when she tumbled down the mountain. She pretends to ignore the creature, but never leaves it out of her sight. She never turns her back to it.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak doesn’t seem put off by the lack of response at all; even perking back up as the human begins retrieving its belongings. He’s eyeing the objects with interest as he keeps talking, seeming to have difficulty choosing between any two of them and the human itself. “I’ll probably think of something better as I explore. Anywho, are you named? All the humans I’ve read about seem to have one.”

He retracts his wing in an effort to help the human pick up their belongings. The little claws on his wings, though not incredibly dextrous, are enough to allow him to pick up a small, cloth-wrapped package. He’d promised not to lick anything else, so he satisfies himself with tilting his head at it curiously before holding it out to them. “Are you from near the mountain? Are there human cities nearby? Did you come from one? I’m going to visit some; I’ve read that humans have good taste in architecture. They use different materials to shape their homes instead of using the ground, but they get around that by being very creative with shapes. Sort of like Snowdin, but without the dryads. And that was from _years_ ago; I bet now your houses are in the sky or... or in _space_. Humans are so cool.”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick pauses briefly, her hands in the middle of strapping her canteen to her belt once again. A stab of ice cold emotion blooms in her chest. The feeling is unwelcome and is pushed away quickly again. She can’t start feeling pity everytime she comes across a walking corpse. It’s not her problem this guy shows absolutely zero capability to survive out here, and it is certainly not _her_ job to keep him safe, or even break him the news that the world is not the perfect paradise he apparently still believes it to be. She’s seen what the knowledge does to people who have lived in isolation in the Capital all their lives.

She looks over her shoulder briefly, and allows herself to study him for a moment. He sort of looks like a dragon, doesn’t he?

When did she go from calling the creature it to him? Nick sighs. She really needs to keep herself in check.

“You can call me Nick.” She presses the buttons on the canteen’s sheath onto her belt and pull at it to make sure it’s secure. It doesn’t come away from her belt again, so she assumes it must have gotten caught on a branch during her fall and that’s why it was ripped off. That’s good. That means she won’t have to waste Tabs on buying a new one.

She swings the strap on her rifle over her shoulder and she pats herself down to make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be. When she is, she looks at her watch and curses. She needs to go _now_ if she wants to make it to the edge of the settlement before nightfall. She has to make it. She can’t go another night out here without stocking up on ammo and food. Not this long after the last outbreak. There’s going to be another one sooner rather than later and she needs to be ready for it. The heavy rope weighting down in her backpack will need to be replaced soon too.

She only manages to take one step away from the creature before a clenching feeling in her belly makes her stop with sigh. She’s _so_ weak.

“Do yourself a favor,” she says over her shoulder, “Go back to wherever you came from. The world you are looking for isn’t here. Humanity is dead and if you stay out here, you’ll end up dead too.” There. She warned him. Now she can leave.

Nick starts to walk away.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

“Nick,” he repeats the name almost like a parrot, trying to get a feel for the word. He decides that he likes it, but his satisfaction is quickly overwritten by her next words.

“Dead?” Cabernak seems confused and a bit alarmed at the enigmatic statements. “What do you m- ah, wait!”

He hurries after her before she gets very far, ending up slithering next to her with the soft, consistent rasp of scale on stone and dirt. He keeps his head just under the height of her chin to better navigate the uneven terrain.

“I know you’re really excited to go, but uh, we’re camping in the other direction. Don’t… don’t you want to come to the celebration?” He looks up at her with a flattened crest. “I still need to make up for scaring you down a cliff. We have food,” he offers hopefully, “and there’ll be dancing and… and are you sure you aren’t hurt?” The renewed worry in his voice is sincere. “You fell… kind of a long ways down, you know?” He clicks his wingclaws together softly and bobs his head in time to Nick’s footsteps. “It would make me feel better if you saw a healer. Please?”

* * *

 

**_Mercy_ **

“I’m fine” she says.

* * *

 

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak looks away thoughtfully before he abruptly puts on a burst of speed to hopefully get in front of Nick. He draws himself up just far enough that he can stare one bright blue eye into both of her own despite the fact that she’s higher up on the overgrown path than him. He coils himself up stubbornly between a mostly-intact dead tree and the easiest way down the steep incline of the mountain, effectively blocking her path.

“But you don’t _know_ that,” he says with a healthy dose of exasperation. “My sister did the same thing once, you know,” a tone of admonishment rising in his voice. “She’s very impatient to finally fledge, and she smacked her wing hard against a stalagmite when she tried. She said she was ‘fine’ too, until we figured out that she’d bruised it badly enough to strain the joint. If it had been left unhealed for much longer, it could have stopped her from flying _ever_. It...” He paused, losing steam. He physically shrinks, drawing into his coil a bit as he dips his head.

His tone shifts from scolding to entreating in the space of seconds. “It might not seem bad right now, but it _could_ be. But it doesn’t have to be. And,” he continues hesitantly, “and you might have fun, meeting everyone. People seem to really like Frisk. I bet they’ll like you, too.”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

When her path is suddenly cut off, Nick’s hands locks into tight fists, her knuckles turning white. A burst of rage surfaces, one she knows is not completely her own, but that she feels just as intensely as if it had been. She bites her jaws together so hard she can feel the uncomfortable scratching vibrations of her teeth rubbing against each other throughout her skull and down the back of her neck.

Her arms itches with the need to draw her weapon and eliminate what is in her way, but she fights the urge with every sane, rational thought she has. This guy doesn’t know what he just started and she doesn’t want to be his first encounter with an infected during an aggro state. There will be plenty of opportunities for him to experience that if he is as dead set on exploring the ruined wasteland of the Earth as he sounds like he is. She must keep herself in control, for his sake. He is far too ignorant and _nice_ to survive her if she loses control.

“I’m _fine_.” She repeats her words carefully and slow, making sure to speak as clearly as possible through her teeth so there are no misunderstandings between them. “You don’t know what has happened to the world, or what humanity has become. Your daydreams of us are all ghosts of the past. Whatever you came here for, you won’t find anything but death and misery left in it’s place.”

She breathes slowly and deeply, fighting against the urge to lash out and raise her voice, or her weapon. _“Please,”_ she thinks, _“Please just get out of my way. Don’t make me snap.”_

“I promise you: You don’t need to worry about me. Start worrying about your own kind instead. Night is approaching fast and you should not be outside unprotected when that happens. The ferals lurk in the darkness and you are all easy prey out here.”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak hunches further into his coils as Nick speaks. “W-well, maybe I _would_ know if you told me. I don’t understand,” he said in a quiet voice before raising it again.

“Everything you say is… is confusing!” He returns to his stubborn, cobra-like posture and gestures for a moment in frustration with a pair of wingclaws towards nothing in particular. “Is there something wrong with the Humans? What are ferals? Is there something bad about night? And… what about you? If it’s that bad, where will _you_ go? Where will you stay?” He pauses before drawing back into a hunched, upset s-curve. “You might be hurt and… and I can’t just leave you all alone out here! If you come back with me, we can both tell them and figure all of this out... together.” He tries to push as much hope as he can into that last word as he can, but his spines are drooping in a telling way.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“You really don’t want me anywhere near anybody you like.” Nick knows she’s being overly dramatic and vague, but damn it, it’s not her job to educate every little person she comes by. Why can’t she just look the other way? Why is this guy so _insistent_ on having her come back with him? Can’t he take a hint? She has no idea how to read this guy or any hint to what he’s feeling at all. He’s a complete mystery to her and it puts her on edge. She’s not used to being blind like this. For all she knows, he could be tricking her.

Nick looks at her watch and curses quietly. She doesn’t have time for this! She needs to get to the settlement and she’s already almost two hours delayed.

“All you need to know is that you need to stay away from humans and you need to hide as soon as the Sun goes down. If you and your…” She looks off towards where the other creatures were. “... _friends_ ,” she continues, looking up at Cabernak again, “just arrived here, then there’s a good chance that you aren’t infected yet but I wo-”

A rush of dizziness followed by a sharp slicing pain through her brain has Nick stumbling back a step. She rests a hand on her forehead, eyes closed and heart racing as she curses again, this time louder and more colorful. Her head starts spinning and her vision is flickering, slowly bleeding into black.

“Damn it,” she mumbles to herself, “Out of time.”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

His posture loosens with concern the more Nick speaks. _Infected?_ The sheer weight of the term makes no sense to him. Had the Humans all collectively caught a cold?

“But _why?_ ” he says, and snaps his mouth shut on further questions as Nick stumbles. Alarm spikes through him for the second time today, and he moves forward, out from his coil to hopefully catch her if she falls. “H-hey! Oh jeez,” he hovers just before her, wingclaws spread uncertainty on either side of her shoulders and his neck pulled back to keep an eye on her body language. He misses her last few words in his effort to keep his wings from mantling too much in distress.

“I _knew_ it,” he says with nervous exasperation. His breath is unusually warm and smells like the inside of a forge. “You _are_ hurt. You might have a concussion or… or something.” There’s another moment of hesitation before he makes up his mind. He gently holds her shoulders between his wings in an attempt to steady her. “Here, ah, sit down,” he says in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. Humans are so small and fragile and stubborn and... this one in particular reminds him of someone.

The thought gives him the steadiness he needs. He would never abandon anyone he cares about, and this human will be no different. “I-I’ve got you. It’s okay, you’re safe,” he soothes as best he can. “You’ll be okay.”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“No!” she says, pushing herself away from him. “You have to get away from me. Right now. Run!” Two minutes.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

“But-” he tries as he receives a shove to the chest. It’s not enough to move him more than a few inches, and his wings remain affixed to her shoulders so that she doesn’t topple backwards or all over him and hurt herself further.

“Run?” If she has any idea of what his body language entailed, she’d probably understand the magnitude of the odd look she’s getting from him right now. “You uh, kinda might have hit your head a little hard on the way down,” he says with concern, “but I’m not gonna leave you here out on your own.”

* * *

 

**_Mercy_ **

She doesn’t have time for this!

“ _Fine_ ,” she growls, “Have it your way. Get me to the tree I crashed into.” If he won’t leave then she’ll use him to get this done faster. She’s running out of time.

She swings her backpack off her back.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak eyes her and then the backpack, drawing back a bit further. “A-are you sure here isn’t-”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“Oh would you _shut up_ !” Nick finally snaps. She glances up and squints, trying to look him in the eye. It’s difficult. She can barely tell his body and the view behind him apart. “I don’t have time for your yapping and “concern” right now! Either you do what I say or you are fucking dead, do you understand that? You will _die_! I will literally rip you apart piece by piece and I can’t stop myself from doing it, unless you either get the fuck out of my way or help me right now!”

Nick is breathing harshly. The pain in her head finally makes her vision flicker out and she groans irritated, rubbing a hand over her forehead. The buzz in her brain is getting louder and she is seriously out of time now. Her fingers tighten around the handle on her backpack. She really hopes this guy doesn’t have a temper like she does.

One minute.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

At her first few words, Cabernak recoils as if she's just slapped him, tucking his chin nearly flush against his neck and releasing her shoulders in the same motion.

The more she speaks, the further down he sinks until the tip of his crest is roughly three feet above the ground and his spinal ridge is flattened to the point of nonexistence.

“Okay,” he says meekly. Keeping an eye on her as he does so, he slithers his way around her left, heading back up the path they came, leaving ample room for her on his right. He untucks himself, but still presses his body fairly low to the ground… but pauses when his chest passes her boots.

“D-do...” His mouth closes as he looks up at her face, and his spines fluctuate uncertainly before he pulls up a couple more feet and offers her his right set of wingclaws in a silent offer to help her balance on their way towards the tree in question.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

At his “okay” all of her guilt over her horrible treatment of him is forced down and away for now. There’s no time for it at this moment. Her body moves by memory, her brain only providing the necessary information to get the job done. She’s fast and her moves are practiced. It barely takes her ten seconds to dig out the harness and ropes in her pack. Before the backpack has even hit the ground she is already stepping into the harness. After dragging it up over her shoulders she pulls it over her chest and clicks the the clasps closed, securing it on her body. Nothing short of a bolt cutter will be able to get this off her now, unless it knows the combination for the padlock dangling from the clasps.

She throws one of the ropes in the direction she last saw Cabernak stand. “See these rings?” she asks in the same direction while she pulls on one of the large metal rings attached to her harness. “You need to help me get that rope through all of them on my left side and then around the tree. Once you’ve done that, I need you to place the ends of the rope in my hand. I’m blind right now, so you have to do it.” She starts working on lacing the rope through the right side rings, hoping it will demonstrate to him how it needs to be done.

“W-when I’m bound to the tree, you need to keep a distance. I’ll be able to rip myself loose a bit, but I can’t escape if it’s done right. Go back to your camp and tell people to hide. It’s their best chance to get through the outbreak. If they’re not seen by the infected, they should survive. Let’s just hope there’s no ferals around, because _then_ we will have problems.”

Nick finishes her right side. She looks up and starts awkwardly half-stumbling in the direction she remembers the tree being in, arms spread out. A few steps in she knocks into something soft and warm. The leathery thing bends underneath her fingers. With a shock she realizes this must be Cabernak she’s touching. Nothing else around here could possibly feel like this.

Her hand finds what can only be described as fingers. The two of them feel smooth and strong to the touch and Nick gratefully curls her own around them in a tight squeeze, trying to stop her violent shaking. It’s been such a long time since she was near other people seconds from an outbreak and she’s more happy about this small support than she will ever admit. It makes her feel not quite as alone.

“And Cabernak...” she says, trying to soften her voice just a bit. Talking through the lump forming in her throat is hard. Her tongue feels numb and heavy in her mouth. Her skin has started to tingle in a terrifyingly familiar way. She’s losing consciousness fast and she doesn’t like how difficult it is to hold it off. It’s been a long time since an outbreak had her shaking in fear quite like this.

This can’t be the day of her second kill. _It can’t be_.

“In a little bit I won’t be me. Whatever I do, do _not_ get near me. Whatever happens to me, _do not touch me_. I can’t stop myself from hurting you if you get too close.”

Nick stops. “Please,” she pleads him, “don’t let me kill you.”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

He still doesn't understand. Not really. But he's motivated by the anger and terror in Nick's voice.

He listens and watches in silence, trying to figure out for himself what is going on. This isn't a normal Human thing to do – he's sure of it - but he watches as Nick dons the harness and threads the multiple metal rings woven into the material with strands of tightly-woven rope. His nose tells him that the metal is solid steel, and he'd be _very_ interested in them indeed had the situation not been as tense as it is. Instead, he pulls his head out of his stomach and focuses on guiding Nick towards the tree.

He's settling her against the base of the tree and fidgeting with the rope she'd been trailing when his spines perk up at the sound of his name. His head is cocked right next to hers, listening, as he's bending over the rings on her left side.

He returns her words with a soft warble that bubbles up from his chest. His 'fingers' aren't as dextrous as hers – and he a sight fewer as well – so he takes longer to finish the threading than she probably likes, but it gets done. He hands her the rope from around the other side like she'd asked him to, having to move partially around the tree to do it. That done, he turns back on himself, curling into a loose coil in front of her and hunching forward nervously to inspect what she's doing.

“Y-you won't,” he says quietly, trying to assuage her morbid fear. “I'm pretty fast when I want to be,” he explains, and slowly looks over Nick's shoulder towards the direction of the camp he'd flown from. Not all of them are as fast as he is.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

As soon as the end of the second rope touches her palm, Nick pulls at it until she feels the pull on her harness. She gets to work on tying the knot that will secure her to the tree right away, her fingers counting, pulling and weaving in between each other in a fast, pre-rehearsed pattern. It’s all printed into her mind and it takes her only a few seconds to twist the rope around itself so the knot forms. When done she guides a second padlock’s metal hook through the eye of the knot and then click it close around the metal ring on her chest.

With a sigh of relief she leans her head back against the tree just in time to hear Cabernak’s quiet words. His promise of speed makes her lips tilt in a sad smile.

“I hope so. You’ll need it.”

Seconds later Nick’s body goes lax.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

His fear begins to grow as he sees just how _quickly_ she completes the restraining process. She’s done it before. _Many_ times before. It adds weight to her words and causes him to fidget restlessly in his coils... until she goes limp all at once.

“Nick?” he says uncertainly. When he isn’t answered immediately, he inches forward, heedless of her previous warnings. One bright blue eye is fixated on the doll-like way her head lolls forward from the harness. “...Nick?”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

The body twitches. Muscles hidden underneath sun colored, dirty skin contract slowly, making fingers open and close repeatedly. The head dangles lifelessly in front of the chest as the body slowly comes to life. Fingers dig into rocky dirt, legs extending to their full length.

The head rolls to the side and over the shoulder, unnatural in its angle and looks too heavy for the neck to carry. The creature awakes when the eyes open. It stares into the sky unmoving for a brief moment, the movement of its eyes the only thing suggesting that it is still alive.

For almost ten seconds, it’s peaceful and quiet. Then the body throws itself into an attack, trying to reach whatever was stupid enough to get too close. It thrashes in the restrains wrapped tightly around its body. A bone chilling gurgle sounds from it’s throat, a mix between the last water running down a drain and a child’s horrified scream. It’s angry at being captured and it tries furiously to get free, not caring about the bloody scrapes that get ripped into it’s skin.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak sighs and retracts as Nick starts moving again, relief overwhelming the particular strangeness of the motions at first. “That was kind of weird, but, uh, can... we’ll get you out of-”

He jerks back with a squawk at the sudden movement from the human, feeling a rush of wind rush past his nostrils. He'd only barely missed getting smacked across the snoot by a flailing limb, and the burst of unnatural noise makes him flinch back further. He was very sure this is a sound that Humans should not be making, despite his very short run of experience with them.

He's shuddering, terrified in his coils as he watches Nick thrash about in a rabid scramble to get free. She isn't even attempting to undo the locks or the ropes that holds her fast, despite him having seen her fasten them mere moments ago. “Stop,” he calls out to her in a shaking, pleading voice.

He's ignored.

“Please,” he tries again. “You'll hurt- you're hurting- you-...”

The only response he receives over her animalistic noises and frantic clawing is the sound of his own scales tapping against each other as he vibrates in place. This is wrong. Terribly wrong. He rubs the side of his face against the curve of one of his coils, instinctively trying to force down his horror and panic with the familiar movement. There isn’t anything he can do. There isn’t anything he can do. There isn’t-

Not here. He jumps on the new thought, clinging to it desperately to drown out the paralyzing fear.

“I'll be back, I-I promise,” he chokes out, forcefully tearing himself from the grisly scene and fleeing with as much speed as he could muster back towards the camp.

Too panicked to fly, his thoughts are racing almost as fast as he was. The Humans are sick. That’s the only explanation. She's said herself that she was infected, right? That… that others were infected? And… something about night? And ferals? What if _all_ of the Humans are like that? What if they live _nearby_ ? What if there are _lots_ of them?

The idea no longer fills him with eagerness. Consuming its place in his soul is a dark pit of dread and fear. Not only for himself, but for all of the other monsters who are completely unaware of the danger. He could only hope that he would be in time to warn them before it’s too late…

And then come back for her.

* * *

 

**_Mercy_ **

It’s a nice day. The Sun is high in the sky, blazing heat beating down over the crusty earth. A slight breeze rattles the grass and bushes on the ground and leaves on the nearby trees. A few birds fly past, their voices quick and shrill. There’s a scent of cooking food on the air and the sounds of life buzzing around.

Sans sits on the ground, his slipper covered feet dangling dangerously over the edge of a steep drop into a chasm. He’s leaning back on his hands, face tilted towards the sky so he can soak up the warm rays of the Sun. He’s not far from camp, only a few feet from the royal tents actually. He can hear Toriel busying herself in the nearby cooking area, making a late lunch for them.

He’s joined by Frisk who appears from one of the nearby tents. The young human child shuffles their way closer, hands hidden in the pockets of their new coat. Their head is bent towards the ground when they sit down next to Sans, who is watching them from the corner of his eye.

Frisk doesn’t say anything, but just sits silently, looking at the ground between them and Sans. There’s still dark circles under their eyes and that makes Sans frown just a bit. They were supposed to nap the midday and afternoon away, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve closed an eye since they were told to go lie down by Toriel.

“what’s up kid?” he asks them. His voice makes them flinch. Sans sighs tiredly at the sight, his smile tilting a bit downwards. “bad dream again?” he asks them more quietly, his voice gaining a soft edge he has reserved for the rare days when Pap is feeling the weight of the world crushing him. It’s not often their imprisonment got to Sans’ brother, but when it did… Papyrus could barely breathe for days. Calling it claustrophobia would be an understatement.

Sans wonders briefly where Papyrus is right now.

Frisk hesitates before answering, their face turned off to the side so Sans can’t read their expression. Their hands start moving, but they refuse to look back at him.

_“I think we should go back to the Underground,”_ they say, _“I want to reset, but I don’t want to do that to you again without telling you.”_ Sans’ soul stutters in his chest.

“what?! no no no kid, don’t even think about that! you said the resets was because you wanted to save everyone and you failed.” Frisk nods. “well you did bucko. look at them. everybody is happy. there’s no reason to reset again.”

_“They are happy_ now _…”_ Frisk signs. _“But not for long.”_

“what do you mean?” Sans asks them slowly, pulling back a bit. “i get the feeling you know something i don’t.” Frisk nods again. “i thought we agreed on no more secrets after what happened with chara.”

Frisk sighs deeply and finally looks at Sans. There’s tears running over their cheeks.

_“I didn’t fall into the Underground by accident, Sans,”_ they sign. _“I jumped.”_

“now why would you do that? that’s just stupid. a drop that long could have…” Sans stops talking and looks horrified at Frisk as they slowly nod again. “you knew you would get hurt?” he asks them, getting another nod in response. Sometimes he forgets this kid isn’t really a kid in their head. “why?”

_“There’s a lot of bad things up here. People die. No one is safe and everyone is afraid. I was all alone and I was scared. My mom…”_ Frisk lets out a sudden sob and bends over their legs, hiding their face away in their hands. Sans tries to comfort them by stroking their back, but it seems to just make them cry harder.

_“I just wanted to get away from_ them _. I didn’t know what was at the bottom of the hole. i just jumped.”_ Sans tries to take their hands in his to calm them, but they rip themselves away and look up at him with a wild expression. _“We can’t stay! I have to go back!”_

“come on kid, we can figure out a way around whatever the problem is” Sans is quick to say. “you’ve got us now. we’ll keep you safe. just gotta have a little faith in us.”

_“There is no hope up here! People just get hurt and die all the time!”_

As if it is planned, right as Frisk signs the last word with a swift slash of their hands, a scream pierces the air. It’s not the kind of scream you misunderstand for a shriek of joy or surprise. No, it’s loud, dark and _terrified_ , without a doubt something born out of great fear and pain.

Sans looks in the direction of the rising noise of voices and catches movement in the horizon from the corner of his eye. His head automatically turns so he can see clearly. What he sees has him pushing himself backwards in a panicked rush, dragging a trembling Frisk with him.

Bodies cover the cliff walls in the chasm under his feet, all of them quickly crawling their way up towards the camp. Sans has no idea what they are but he doesn’t need to know right now. Frisk is frantically pulling at his sleeve, trying to force his gaze over at them so he can see what they are saying.

Frisk suddenly exclaims a raw, throaty scream and disappears from Sans’ side. When he spins around to find them, they’re already running towards the huge mass of monsters gathered in the center of the camp. Frisk is screaming incoherently, their throat just making whatever noise it can while they rip and push their way through the crowd.

Voices in the air whisper in hurried, scared phrases. Sans can almost taste their fear and feels their hope draining like a physical pain in his soul. All the voices are saying the same thing.

**_The Queen is dead._ **

He takes a shortcut and appears in the inner ring of the circle of monsters. In the middle lies the lifeless pile of dust and a bloody purple dress that was once the Queen. Sans sees the body of something lie torn to pieces off to the side and sees Greater Dog sitting nearby, the fur around his mouth dripping with what Sans assumes is the poor dead bastard’s blood. Greater Dog looks absolutely traumatized, but Sans can’t focus on the obvious distress of his friend right now. He doesn’t have to either. He sees Papyrus sitting on his knees in front of Greater Dog, tears on his face and fear in his eyes. They share a look and Papyrus shakes his head.

“She tried to talk to the human,” Papyrus whispers. “It just attacked her. It happened so fast. W-we couldn’t stop it. S-she didn’t stand a chance against it.”

“it’s ok paps,” Sans tells his brother. “it’s not your fault.” Sans will comfort his brother later. He knows Papyrus can handle himself, and Greater Dog too, for the moment. Right now Sans needs to make sure the kid is safe first.

Frisk is sitting in the middle of Toriel’s remains, crying loudly. Their small hands are slapping their head and chest in an almost frustrated fashion that can’t be anything but painful. It’s almost like they are trying to force something to happen.

“kid,” Sans calls softly with a voice heavily affected by how absolutely dumbstruck he feels. “kid stop. s-she’s gone.”

Frisk jumps up and grabs onto Sans’ arm with one hand. The other starts signing in a rapid speed. _“I can’t reset!”_ they say panicked. _“I can’t feel any of my saves. Help me Sans! I need to bring her back!”_ After a quick look at Frisk’s soul, Sans slumps down and shakes his head.

“no can do kid. looks like you’re outta time. humans aren’t supposed to have magic and you’ve been outta the underground for too long. your borrowed magic ran out.”

_“Then I’ll go back and find it!”_ Frisk says. Their determined expression makes Sans’ soul pinch with pity. This poor kid. Sans doesn’t need to hear the end of whatever they had been trying to tell him. He knows the kid’s mom died. It’s obvious. And now it just happened again. If there’s anyone that knows how much a parent’s death hurts, it’s Sans. He experienced it twice too. He feels for the kid, he really does. But he can’t let them go off on a fool's errand, no matter how little he wants to crush this kid’s hope. Besides, they have other things to worry about. Like why people have started screaming again and why a human came into the camp and killed the Queen instantly without listening to her first.

“doesn’t work like that. humans only have a limited amount of magic in their souls that unlocks when they get near a monsters aura for the first time. when that runs out it’s over. can’t be refilled. you just kept resetting and getting your magic back, that’s why you had so much for so long. i’m sorry kid but there’s nothing you or i can do. we can’t bring people back from the dead.”

Sans can barely stand to watch Frisk’s reaction. The sound of their howling sobs almost kills him.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak arrives back at the edge of the camp panting and out of breath, but a steadily increasing clamor of screams as he draws closer and the telltale sounds of magic detonating swiftly crystallize a cold lump of fear in his chest. Slowing, he approaches from further up on the mountainside, flattening himself against the ground and poking his head over a ridge. His ragged breathing shallows out into quick, panicked gasps as the breadth of the chaos below him unfolds. The horrifying cacophony of screams and combat ring out, poisoning the atmosphere of the otherwise sunny afternoon.

He's too late. Far too late.

Loud shouting can be heard over the noise of various forms of magic being cast in desperation by injured and fleeing monsters. Cabernak instantly recognizes the voice rallying the Royal Guard into a protective phalanx while the rest of the monsters retreat on the freshly beaten path upward towards the mountain entrance.

On the front line, side by side with Captain Undyne, stands King Asgore himself. He bears a grim expression and a exudes a powerful aura so different from the times the amphithere had seen him as a hatchling. The friendly, jovial King of Monsters now spearheads the defense as a force of terrible reckoning, wielding a sweeping trident and a swathe of deadly flame against the onslaught. The King and the Guardsmen alternate between devastating volleys of magical destruction and skewering the infected upon their blades as they edge backwards.

Charred, mangled corpses mark the Guards’ slow ascent. A few of the maimed or ignited attackers howl and tumble off the ridge, but most doggedly continue the assault regardless of injury until they’re cut down into bleeding, screaming, and twitching heaps. If Cabernak is grateful for one thing at that very moment, it’s for the fact that he’d had nothing to eat recently. His stomach is performing sickening flops at the gruesome sight, and he’s forced to look away, trembling.

The mountainous terrain proves to be less of an obstacle and more of an annoyance to some of the gibbering, slavering hordes of crazed, sick humans. Whereas most of them seem keen on mindlessly breaking themselves on the Royal Guards' weapons and armor, Cabernak's sharp eyesight from his prone vantage point picks out a number more of them steadily crawling their way further up along the face of the ridge the escapees were fleeing. Unlike Nick, these _particular_ humans are horrifically pale and scabrous, sporting only vestiges of clothing and a number of malformations. The most noticeable of these are allowing them to climb the near-vertical cliff wall with jerky, animalistic movements-

They have claws.

The Guard obviously has no idea - how could they? Focusing on the threat before them,  there is no time for them to spot the infected in the path of their retreat. They are going to be cut off. Surrounded. Cabernak feels a sharp pang in his soul that amplifies his terrified shivering, scales rasping sharply against the stone.

They are going to die.

No, someone will surely see them in time. He can clearly hear the sound of the King’s voice above the cacophony, calling for another magical volley.

_Someone will..._

A jerky claw digs into an outcropping twenty meters down from their path. The evacuees that do look back from the entrance to the Underground aren’t looking down.

_Someone, surely..._

Fifteen meters. Cabernak’s breath rattles in his throat. No no no no no-

_They’ll see. Someone will see._

Ten meters. The monsters keep running, oblivious to the new peril.

_They’ll-_

Eight meters. Hope and terror battle in his soul, compressing in him like a coiled spring. The young amphithere draws in on himself until he can’t contain the nervous emotion.

He springs up to a standing height faster than he’d ever done in his life and snaps his wings open as far as they can go. His wings amplifying the volume, his voice explodes in a wordless shriek of pure desperation; his attempt at warning them of the danger.

Someone turns. Someone at the very back of the evacuee party - a skeleton monster. They look up at him, and in response, Cabernak snaps his wings shut and turns his narrow body into an arrow. An arrow points directly down at the imminent threat. They look.

The response from the monster is immediate.

A wall of conjured, glowing blue bones shoot out of the side of the cliff, blocking off a portion of the the infected humans’ advance. It seems to confuse and stall them, but it’s not long before they’re digging their claws into the magic as well, tearing it apart to progress. Another row of bones pop out of the mountain, and the skeleton monster yells at the Guardsmen. Though Cabernak can’t make out the words, it seems to have an effect on the Captain. She spares a glance out of her undamaged eye and, with a few barked commands, the pace of the retreat picks up considerably.

Cabernak shakily returns to his prone position, watching the scene unfold with painful apprehension.

Captain Undyne swiftly whirls out of the phalanx, and the gap in the line is immediately closed. Waves of teal spears sizzle and crackle through the air as they’re tossed into the encroaching mass of clawed infected. The first wave sees most of the spears hit their mark, sending a number of the creatures to bash themselves to death upon the rocks or the ground far below. The next few aren’t so lucky, with a large number of the projectiles being narrowly dodged by the warier survivors.

The first few of them clamber atop the trail and lunge for the nearest targets. Captain Undyne guards the skeleton while he conjures yet another row of bones to patch the swiftly deteriorating previous one. Shortly, however, even the Captain is overwhelmed and she and the other monster are forced to fight back to back for a short time before the rest of the Guard catch up. The phalanx expands, leaving gaps as it’s forced to defend from two sides, but they’re nearly there.

Captain Undyne takes the outer edge of the phalanx, resuming her spear rain, and the skeleton monster fills a gap on the cave side. To Cabernak’s surprise, however, the side of the phalanx towards the cave entrance is full of far more bones than one skeleton monster could possibly explain. He catches a flash of a blue jacket-

The sound of loose stone from below disturbs Cabernak from the spectacle. He tilts an eye over the edge to see a couple clawed infected scaling the cliff just below him. He jerks back, and a sound between a squawk and a screech tears from him. He throws himself over the edge at an angle, but still catches a painful swipe to the tail. It hurts like ice, but he has no time to worry about that, beating rapidly at the air for purchase before he catches the edge of the Surface wind. He overcorrects a double handful of times before he levels out.

The infected are screaming at him in what might have been frustration before they clamber like ungainly spiders towards the entrance to the Underground. Cabernak flutters overhead nervously before catching a weak thermal radiating up the side of the mountain. He trains his vision on where the Guardsman were.

A number of magical projectiles are spewing from the entrance to the Underground before they abruptly stop. Cabernak watches, helpless, as the mass of infected pour forward to scratch and tear at… the air?

The crazed swarm of humans are clawing at what _seems_ to be air, but when he swoops a few meters lower to see, he can detect it: a faint magical aquamarine shimmer every time they strike it.

A new Barrier.

His confusion and the pain from his wound cloud his thoughts for a few moments before the first realization comes through with overwhelming, nearly crippling relief. He wastes a few extra wingbeats to still the pulsing from his soul. They’re all safe. The Guardsmen, the King, his family… all of the monsters back in the mountain are safe again. He lets the warmth of those thoughts wash over him as he stares down at the entrance to the Underground, but it isn’t long before his eyes stray to the trail of mutilated corpses leading down to the forest and whatever remains of their camp, still hidden under the cover of trees. His eyes travel back up from the camp to the mountain.

The second realization hits. The flame of warmth is painfully extinguished, and his next breath is released in an agonized, air-rending keen. The sound reverberates down the mountain, long and loud and mournful.

Cabernak is trapped under the sky, outside of the protective stone under the mountain. He keens again, but softly; the noise strangled and barely leaving his throat. He circles on the thermal without so much as twitching, his wings feeling heavier than stone. Utterly alone in the great big world he'd so desperately wanted to see for most of his life, cut off from everyone he’d ever known -

_That isn’t true._

With that grasping thought, a new breed of terror closes on his soul, and he throws air behind himself, desperate for speed for the second time today.

_Not here._

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

_Time skip - Next morning - Very early_

Returning to consciousness again is a slow ascent from one of the darkest corners of her mind. She’s not entirely aware of the time that passes by outside her bubble of darkness, but somehow she’s still able to remember snippets of the things that she has never done. It’s a whirling storm of images and emotions, one that she tries to ignore when it first hits her. She will have plenty of time to think about it and sort the memories later.

Her eyes stay closed even long after she regains awareness and control of them. It’s her attempt to keep out the sensory overload of information that surrounds her. Opening them before she has had time to mentally prepare herself would overwhelm her still fragile mental state. It’s no surprise that being forced out of her own body and head so violently is followed by great consequences and a very bad headache. Being pushed back into consciousness and her body is already close to being too much for her to handle at once.

Her entire body buzzes with the familiar tingle of exhaustion. Her muscles have turned useless and numb, the level of lactic acid they can withstand without injury is way past the maximum. A silent curse is sent towards wherever the bug is hiding in her head. Hopefully it can hear and understand her thoughts. She _hates_ it with such intense passion that she’s sure her hatred could burn the Capital to the ground if she could manifest it as fire. It would be a scorching inferno unlike any the Earth have ever seen.

Her muscles protest loudly, a dull ache rolling through them when her body twitches for the first time. They are sore from overuse and some even react with sharp stabs of pain when moved. Once again her muscles have sustained damages that need time and patience to heal. A ruptured muscle fiber is not a particularly dangerous thing, but it is an inconvenience when she has so far to travel.

These are the only times where she’s actually grateful for the accelerated healing agents the parasite inside her provides.

The first real movement she makes is slowly rubbing the tips of her fingers over each other. Her thumb runs in jerky motions over the the other fingers, feeling the grainy, moist texture of dirt caught by a sticky liquid. The feeling makes her stomach turn, but she holds off the rush of nausea rising in her throat.

She prays silently that her victim has an unfamiliar face.

Her eyes crack open, eyelids barely leaving a tiny sliver of air between them at first. A groan passes her lips when her eyes are met by the light of a rising sun just barely visible behind the peak of the mountain. She turns her face away with a sluggish motion and finally become able to open her eyes halfway.

The first thing she sees is her own body. Covered in dirt and drying, still semi-wet blood,she’s in great danger until she gets into hiding or gets cleaned up. If someone was to come by her while looking like this, she would have very few breaths left to take. Her appearance is screaming “infected” and in the wasteland, it’s shoot first, ask later.

The sight of small almost-healed wounds covering her arms and hands relaxes her a little. It seems like the blood covering her fingertips is her own and not someone else's. There’s no bodies in her immediate vicinity, so she is counting herself lucky for getting through another outbreak without adding more lives to her conscience. However, the joy of her still clear conscience drains out quickly when her gaze lands on the body of a familiar creature.

Curled around his own upper body, tail hugged tightly to his chest, Cabernak lies some distance away from her. His wings are dropped over his curled up form, draped heavily over himself like blankets. He’s staring into space, clearly unaware of her awakening. He looks haunted almost, she thinks to herself. She still can’t read his expression, but the way his entire body seems ridden of the energy and his lax posture makes her believe that he is not doing too well. He looks like someone who just went through a traumatizing event. Her heart clenches at the thought of her being the reason for that.

She swallows thickly and blames her recent awakening after an outbreak for the high emotions thrashing around in her chest, rising and trying to escape through the small but sudden wetness of her eyes. Hopefully his state of mind is temporary and not a permanent thing.

“You’re still here.” The quiet words can barely be heard through the roughness of her voice.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

He hadn’t slept at all last night.

The series of events that had taken place had not fully settled, instead enveloping him in a numbed, emotionless state. After he had landed - painfully, with his tail catching the edge of a rock - he had curled up a ways above Nick to keep vigil. The day had bled out and a crescent moon had risen and departed without sight nor sign of any additional infected.

He’d tried not to think about why that might be. He’d tried not to think about _anything._

The mountain night had been cold for him, but he dared not use his magic for fear of drawing unwanted attention. He didn’t tunnel, either, as he wasn’t keen on abandoning Nick in her ‘vulnerable’ state.

He’d hoped that was what it was. Evidence - the straps, her familiarity, her implied knowledge - pointed to the crazed mindset being temporary. Having no other recourse but an unthinkable secondtion option, he’d settled in to wait it out.

The warmth of the Surface sun is weak and sad compared to the inferno of Hotland, but it’s still enough to give him some comfort from the chill. A wing twitches here and there as his tight ball of coils loosen to better receive the pathetic amount of heat. It’s a slow and lethargic process, and his head doesn’t even move from where it’s drooped over a particularly high coil despite the jostling.

The voice gets a reaction from him, however. The spines along the back of his neck twitch, and he lifts his chin a bare inch look in her direction. He seems to process the information slowly, head cocking fractions at a time. When it finally clicks, the rasping of his movements increase as he fully uncurls himself. His injured tail is held slightly off the ground, and he assumes a posture much lower to the earth than normal to help compensate for it.

“I promised I’d come back,” he returns in an equally quiet voice. There’s relief in the tone, but it’s nearly overshadowed by exhaustion.

He seems to want to get closer, but the way he stops just beyond the tree suggests an immense hesitance. A wingclaw taps at a belly scale in a steady cadence.

“A-are you…” He shrinks a few more inches downward.

* * *

 

**_Mercy_ **

Nick follows his sluggish movements as he unfolds, her eyes taking in his strange body even though her brain is far too exhausted to really understand what she’s seeing. She doesn’t miss the wound on his tail, however, nor does she miss the careful way he carries himself or the his hesitance to come closer to her. His half-spoken question confirms her theory: He’s scared of her.

“I told you not to get too close.” Her words sounds cold and disappointed, even to her own ears. Her eyes stick to the wound on his tail, refusing to look away while the bile rises in the back of her throat. How can she have done something like that and _not remember it?_

She banishes the lump of guilt and self-loathing in a fit of stubbornness, refusing to fall into a pit of self-pity. She starts repeating her old mantra to herself, trying to calm her mind. _What is done without my consent is not my fault._

She starts the long and slow process of getting out of the harness and the ropes and find somewhere to hide away for the next few days while she recovers. Her elbows shake dangerously under her as she tries to push herself up from the ground, her face contracting in an expression of pain. Every muscle in her body is protesting being used, but she keeps moving through the pain, knowing that moving around will kickstart her healing.

Her fingers fumble at the padlock for a few moments before she’s able to scroll the tiny wheels onto the preset code that unlocks it. She rips it off when it pops open and starts shrugging the ropes off her shoulders, careful not to reopen any of the wounds rapidly healing all over her arms.

“I’m fine now,” she tells Cabernak. “It’s just a temporary thing. You are free to go.” She doesn’t want to torment the poor guy and force him to stay for longer than needed. It’s obvious that whatever she did to him has messed him up.

She’ll be okay alone. She always is.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak eyes the blood staining her a bit emptily. He knows where it came from, and it certainly wasn’t from him. “I... didn’t.”

It takes him a bit longer to realize that her blood isn’t the thing she’s occupied with, misty gears turning in his mind. He cocks his body to the side, momentarily hiding his tail from view. He’s not ready to explain himself yet, so he stays silent as Nick focuses on the harness.

He clicks the ridges of his jaws together once as she speaks again, and the words make him wince. “I-I thought,” he tries, his voice trembling. “I thought... maybe... I could go with you? I don’t have-”

Anything. Anyone.

“-anywhere to else to be. I can be useful,” he pleads, edging closer. “I can- I can be quiet.”

The mere thought of being alone in the vast, nigh-infinite Surface world is now enough to overwhelm him with terror all over again. Cabernak does his best to hide the shiver that runs down his spine. His head still only a couple feet above the ground, he looks up at Nick entreatingly.

“Maybe just- just for a little while?”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick pauses as his request registers to her, the half-folded rope in her hands hanging limply from her dirty fingers.

“You want to come with me?” she asks quietly, surprise easy to hear in her voice. That’s the last thing she had expected him to say. Actually, she had expected him to take off instantly and leave her behind. “Why?” she can’t help but ask. It’s strange. What does he think she can offer him that one of his own kind can’t? Why is he even willing to stay around her for more than the time it took to make sure she’s alright? Most humans wouldn’t even do that, especially not if they had seen her during an outbreak, and if she had hurt them. She would probably be dead if that was the case.

She finishes up the first rope and returns it to her backpack. She gets to work on folding the last rope and waits for his response.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak hovers nearby, seeming uncertain on how best to answer. A short time later, he looks away, and the sound of a lone wingclaw scratching a figure eight along the ground is heard.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he says honestly, almost but not quite repeating himself.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Her fingers tighten their hold on the backpack, feeling the ropes and the harness she just put in there clearly through the thick fabric. She has to bite her teeth together and close her eyes to keep herself from speaking right away and saying something she’ll regret. She inhales slowly and after a moment she lets out the air in a deep sigh. She repeats the slow breathing a few times.

_Don’t even_ **_think_ ** _about it Nick. Say no._

What happened during the outbreak? She _saw_ his camp and the hundreds of his kind. It’s very obvious he used to have a place to go.

_It’s not your responsibility._

What if something horrible happened? What if he’s the only survivor? She can’t just…

_Yes, leave him behind._

If she leaves him behind now she’ll be partly responsible if he dies. He stayed with her last night and didn’t harm her, despite her giving him every reason to. If his kind was wiped out in the outbreak then she can’t imagine why he let _her_ live. That kind of mercy shouldn’t be taken lightly. He spared her life. The only reasonable thing to do is repay the favor by saving his life too. If travelling with her for a while will do that, then is that really that huge of a sacrifice for her?

_He’s dangerous._

Not more than she is.

_He’s a liability. He’s too soft to survive out here._

Apparently not. Him being alive clearly suggests the opposite. Besides, he can learn.

_We don’t need anyone else._

Nick opens her eyes, her jaw set in a defiant manner. She swings her backpack onto her back again and then grabs onto the tree to start the agonizingly slow process of standing up. Her knees and thighs wobble dangerously, on the brink of giving up but she refuses to acknowledge the pain or exhaustion. She has a cave to find and resting to do. Being outside any longer is too huge a risk.

When she finally manages to stand up fully she glances at Cabernak. His pitiful appearance and expression makes her gut clench in sympathy. She can only imagine what horrors he had to witness during the outbreak, and her heart bleeds for him a little. She remembers the first outbreak she witnessed at the age of 15. She had been so protected, so positive. Loved life so much…

He had so much hope and if anyone knows how much it hurts to have your hope taken from you by the harsh reality that is the wasteland, it would be her. No one deserves to experience that form of emotional pain.

“If you fall behind, you get left behind,” she tells him, “You fend for yourself and find your own food. If you want to survive, you listen to what I say and I would suggest learning from me _quickly_ . We don’t have much time to educate you on the ways of the wasteland before we need to hit the road again, so make sure you pay attention.” She takes a step closer to him, looking him straight in the eye. Her voice drops into a darker and more sinister tone. “And if you tell _anyone_ what you saw me become last night…” She pauses for effect, staring into his eye to make sure he understands she’s _deadly_ serious about this. “... you will wish you were never born.”

She keeps looking at him as she pulls back but then breaks their eye contact when she turns her back to him. The first few steps she takes down the road are wobbly and uncertain, her knees almost giving out everytime they are put under pressure. Nick ignores her body’s protests in favor of collecting her M24 that’s lying in the dirt on the side of the trail leading down the mountain. She brushes it off briefly, silently apologizing to it and making a promise to give it a thorough cleaning and oiling when she has rested.

“Come along,” she calls over her shoulder, “We need to find a cave or something to hide in for a while until I’m back to normal strength. It’s too dangerous for me to be out right after an outbreak. People will be looking for infected now that we’re too weak to protect ourselves and I would prefer not getting killed anytime soon. Pick up any wood you find on the way.”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

He fidgets fretfully with his wingclaws as he awaits her answer, and when it does come, she has his full attention.

Her first few words are like magic to him, coursing through his body and relieving some of the knotted tension in his soul. He bobs his head eagerly as she speaks, but abruptly startles backwards when she takes a step towards him. He presses down on himself, nearly flattening himself against the ground as Nick continues. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak as she looms over him.

He waits, trembling, even after she’s turned away from him. He winces as she calls for him, but the beckoning coaxes him out of his grovelling with the objectively more terrifying prospect of her leaving him there.

He follows her slowly, keeping a good three meters between them. Following her directions, he occasionally plucks a small stick off the trail with his wingclaws. He finally rediscovers his voice at the same time it begins becoming difficult to hold the bundle of small, two to five inch sticks between his wings.

“Are most humans infected?” He asks tentatively.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

She picks up another bigger branch on her way, eyes searching the mountain sides for any openings big enough to fit the both of them. She’s still moving slow and each step is becoming harder and harder to take. Her legs tremble.

“Most of us are, yes,” she answers him. “I don’t know how many are still themselves. It’s difficult to tell who’s infected if they aren’t feral. I don’t even know how many of us are still sane. It’s best just to assume that everyone is infected and run away if you see the signs of an outbreak coming.” She assumes he’s asking because he wants to learn how to avoid them next time.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

“O-oh,” he replies before lapsing back into silence.

As close to the ground as he is, it’s hard for him to miss her growing signs of weakness. He clutches his faggot closer to his chest and slinks his way closer behind her. His voice comes from a meter behind her last step. The scents of iron, steel and aluminum radiating from her possessions are stronger this close and make his stomach clench uncomfortably.

“Did you have a cave in mind…? Is it far? I-if it is,” he offers quietly before she can respond, “we could maybe stop here instead? I’m sure your cave is much better,” he reassures her quickly. “But… but we’re both tired, and I’m hungry.” His stomach clenches again, as if to illustrate his point. He’d used a lot of energy last night and he’d gotten no sleep afterwards. He feels achy, tired, and more than a bit drained.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

She sighs and stops, chin falling to rest on her chest. “I’m starving too,” she admits, looking over her shoulder shortly. Being honest might help get that horrible look of distrust off his face for just a short while. She hopes so. Seeing it everytime she glances at him makes her feel sick to her stomach. “But we need to be safe. People will be looking for me and I’m not strong enough to protect myself right now. I can’t be out in the open.” She looks into the horizon and watches the last traces of the night sky that’s slowly bleeding into day. The stars flicker out and blends in with the blue that’s slowly appearing. The sun has gone above the peak of the mountain and is now baking on her back, warming it up.

“I don’t have any cave in mind. I’m usually… I’m usually not here when an outbreak happens. I don’t know this area too well. It’s usually just a road I put behind me when travelling.” She shifts the wood from one arm to the other to rest her burning muscles. She needs to lie down soon.

“To be honest, I can’t move much further either, but there’s nothing around here that can hide us” she explains, looking around them. “It’s all just rock and dirt. We need the safety of walls all around us, a roof over our heads and a fire to keep us warm and to cook food by. I don’t see anything around here that matches that description. Do you?” She looks at him again.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak is too distracted to watch the sunrise, but the dawning of warmth on the land is much more comfortable for him than the fading chill of night. He comes to a full stop the moment Nick slows her pace.

He seems hesitant to answer her at first, instead making a show of adjusting the faggot in his claws, filling the space between them with the sound of jostling wood. He cocks his head a few times before finally looking up at her. “There... doesn’t need to be if I can make one. I come from a long line of stoneshapers,” he explains, and feels a twinge of pride in his chest. “My family taught me to...”

He trails off, and his entire body seems to droop. Instead of vacantly staring at Nick’s shirt, however, he turns to the slanted face of the ridge running parallel to the trail and inhales deeply. Beneath the overpowering scent of Nick’s possessions, he can smell sandstone and quartz with traces of nickel and pyrite coming from their environment. The general lack of dirt and foliage along this part of the mountain would make this easier. Burrowing through dirt smells awful.

He presses the front of his tooth-plated muzzle against the face of the stone and opens it, exhaling in a very specific way. A gout of white-hot magic flame speeds along a flat, rasped tongue, painfully bright and outlining each ridge of the amphithere’s teeth. Despite the volatile nature of the fire, very little of it escapes the sides of Cabernak’s mouth. With a series of loud hisses and cracks from the stone, a patch of the ridge roughly a foot in circumference superheats until it’s indistinguishable from the magic itself.

Cabernak temporarily pulls back a few inches and stems the fire so Nick can see. The white-hot patch of stone is sloughing off and running down the face of the ridge, dripping and melting like poured liquid. He gives the human a quick look before he gives the heart of the melted area a passing lick to taste it. He produces a dissatisfied warble as he identifies it: mostly sandstone.

Meanwhile, the drops of liquid stone near the base of the ridge continue to hiss and sputter as they slowly cool and resolidify, making a very odd and unnatural spectacle of modern art.

* * *

 

**_Mercy_ **

“Stoneshapers? What does that even mea…” Nick’s voice cuts off abruptly when the ridge of the mountain that Cabernak is leaning his face against literally starts to _melt_ in front of her very eyes.

She stares at him and the melting stone stunned and speechless. When he leans forward to lick the liquid stone a squeak tumbles out of her mouth. She quickly snaps her mouth closed and puts on a neutral expression, but it’s obvious in the way her eyes are wide that she’s far from done freaking out about this display of…

What the _fuck_ is she even supposed to call this?!

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak appears a little self-conscious as he looks over at Nick’s obviously startled expression. He pulls away from the ridge and the shimmering waves of heat rising from the cooling stone. “I’m not as good at it as… as my parents, but making a cave will be easier than finding one... right?”

He looks to Nick for approval, still uncertainly clutching the sticks she’d told him to collect and seeming a bit downcast.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“Y-yeah.” A moment filled with her continued staring goes by before she seemingly wakes up from her surprise induced trance. “Yeah that’s perfect actually.” Just the thought of being able to lie down within the next short while feels like Heaven to her. She can’t wait to eat and sleep.

She eyes the still dripping, molten stone. “Uh. That is going to turn back into solid rock again, right?” she asks nervously.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak gives her an odd look, cocking his head just a little too far to the side to stare at her from the corner of one eye’s vision. “...Yes?” His tone suggests that this is something supremely obvious. “Stuff cools down if you don’t keep it heated,” he explains for her. “Uh, here,” he says, and moves just a bit closer to her to place his faggot safely out of the way of what was going to be working on. Wood tended to be very flammable, and while he is fairly good at keeping his magic where he wants it to be, he’d rather have the use of his wings for this.

“I know humans aren’t very good with hotness,” he says with a degree of sympathy as he turns back to the swiftly cooling ridge he’d already burned a hole in. “So, uh, you might want to… not be so close.”

He waits patiently for her to move back so that she doesn’t get unnecessarily blasted by a wave of heat when he starts.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“Well how was I supposed to know? You just magically burned a hole in the side of a mountain!” Nick responds, gesturing with one hand to the… She still doesn’t know what to call it.

She scoops up the small pile of sticks he puts down on the ground and pulls back with much difficulty, eager to follow his directions. There’s no way in hell she’s getting burned to a crisp by a dragon today.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak’s dorsal spines ripple down his back in an equivalent of his species’ version of a shrug as he considers the ridge. “Yeah,” he says, too tired to find anything extraordinary about her explanation. “I did a lot of this back home.”

He returned his muzzle to the face of the ridge, unaffected by neither the cooling stone nor the new blaze erupting from his maw. The white flame is brighter and more powerful this time, shortly causing a waterfall of white, orange and red droplets of liquid stone to spill from where Cabernak is working. He doesn’t need to shove it out of the way - much of it near the ‘entrance’ of the ridge simply washes down until it’s left to sizzle at the base of the trail. The bits that leak far enough to reach Cabernak’s belly scales are parted easily as he moves forward instead of sticking to him like one might expect.

Honestly, he’s doing a fairly shoddy job at making a cave, but he’s tired and simply wants to get this over with as quickly as possible. So, in the interest of time, he presses forward. Literally.

He shoves his entire face - still breathing his specific breed of magic - into the soupy, viscous mass of melted stone until the points of his crest are the only part visible. Rivulets of searing white run down his neck and back, leaving no mark on his black scales and dripping harmlessly onto the ground. His neck disappears shortly after his head, followed shortly by his chest. His efforts to wedge and widen the hole displaces a larger amount of molten rock that spews from the entrance and gathers at the base in folded, wavy sheets. Soon, all that’s seen of Cabernak is the closed fan of his tail, and then even that wriggles out of sight into the bright, leaking hole he’s busily carving his way into. A constant plume of pure, radiating heat rises upwards from the hole, obscuring the contents with a wavering haze.

Minutes pass with only the grating, scraping noises from within and the steady sound of roaring flame testifying to the amphithere’s continued existence. It isn’t long before a cascade of liquid stone pours from the entrance, splattering the trail in angrily hissing blobs. Cabernak reappears behind it, using part of his left wing and chest to guide a new wave of stone out of the tunnel. In a display of incredible flexibility, he turns back on himself at the very mouth of the opening to return to the inner cavern, pressing himself sharply against the walls as he does so to further widen the tunnel with his passage.

He repeats this process a few times, in each instance making an appearance at the entrance with another wingful of stone until the trail is covered in a smooth, rounded paving of different states of cooling rock. Half an hour later, on perhaps the eighth round of his ministrations, he pauses at the entrance with his chin resting just out of the entrance upon the ramp that the mostly solid excess stone has created. He’s breathing heavily and his head is tilted ever so slightly to the side to look for wherever Nick has gone to in the meantime. The bright colors of his eyes are obscured partially by the thick, protective nictitating membranes, giving him a cloudy, distant look.

The entrance, now large enough to squeeze Nick through, is filled with an exceptionally tired amphithere.

“It’s…” He takes a deep breath. “It’s cooling.” His voice has a weary gravel to it born of exhaustion. He’d eaten a little of the sandstone, and the heat emanating from the cave itself is comforting. He has to fight not to pass out on the spot. “Give it... uh…” He pauses, forcing his mental gears to turn. “Give it an hour. Probably.”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“An hour?!” Nick exclaims as loudly as she feels she can get away with without alerting any potential enemies nearby. It’s barely above her normal volume.

She looks away with an irritated sigh, trying to calm the pulse of unease in her belly. She doesn’t like to be out in the open this long after an outbreak. Every second she spends out here is another second closer to being discovered by the Fumigators. Being discovered by them means death and she can’t accept that.

Rubbing her eyes with a wrist helps her feel a bit more refreshed, enough so her thoughts clear up a bit. She’s exhausted, she’s hungry, she’s hurting and she is just really fucking done with being conscious. Sleeping the next two days away sounds amazing. Then she can turn her backpack inside out, hoping to find some scrap of food hiding in there. If not then she’ll have to go hunting and that’s just asking to be even more delayed than she already is.

Some part of her wants to curse and shout and blame him for not being able to make it ready faster. Or for even suggesting something so stupid when he obviously seemed to know about humans’ inability to _lie in molten rock_. Maybe even for suggesting something that takes so long despite her telling him they were running out of time, but she can’t. One look at him tells her he’s about as exhausted as she is. Where he lies in the opening of the hole he just made, his body slumped over, head resting just on the edge of the crack, he looks just about ready to pass out. Nick feels the desire to do the same, to let the warmth from a fire and the softness of the hides and furs of her bedroll lull her into one of the only peaceful slumbers she gets now a days.

Even though she thinks it’s really nice of him to literally make her a place to hide in despite him being exhausted and haunted by whatever he experienced last night, she can’t help but feeling bitter and disappointed at the same time. She never can get a fucking break in this world, can she? Not only does she have to endure the aftereffects of being violated by that insatiable parasite inside her, but she now ends up being the babysitter and bodyguard of one passed out dragon who apparently possesses the powers to melt a mountain. Great.

“You know what? Nevermind. Get some sleep. I’ll just… go keep watch. Scream if something tries to eat you. Or melt it. That will probably work just fine too.” She sets her watch for one hour, swallows a pill from the bottle hidden away in a pocket on her belt when she sees it’s getting close to 8AM and throws her backpack on the ground in front of the cave. She re-adjusts the M24’s strap on her shoulder and starts the slow, excruciatingly painful walk to the edge of the mountain. From there she should be able to get a good view of the only trail leading up towards them, and the trail coming from the other side too.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak’s flinch at Nick’s tone is so mitigated by his exhaustion that it could have been interpreted as a random twitch before his head lolls right back to where it was before. He can’t bring himself to care too much anymore. Not when the heat, the food, and the assurance of Nick’s company - regardless of how angry she is at him - all bear down on him at once.

Nick is barely out of sight before Cabernak’s awareness disappears, and he’s deadweight in his newly cut cave. His lack of eyelids lends him the unnatural appearance being constantly awake if one doesn’t take into account the steady hiss of breath slipping between his teeth.

-

The whole thing is fairly straightforward and simplistic as far as small caverns go. Cabernak was careful to keep the rock nice and smooth in its initial stages of cooling, so there are no rough edges in the finished product. The smoothest area by far is the floor, where waves upon waves of superheated waste stone had been shoved outward. It’s also the most uneven surface, despite his best efforts. The best caves, however, are worked on throughout an amphithere’s life - the floor being the highest level of maintenance they required. This effort is hardly a display of his skills, and his parents would probably be embarrassed by the whole slapdash affair if they ever somehow found out about it.

The tunnel is three feet wide and has a very slight upwards gradient to it that had aided him in removing the majority of the stone, and it leads to a fairly spacious cavern roughly the length of Cabernak’s body away from the face of the ridge. The cavern is dome-like in shape with the floor of it being as even as he could manage in a short amount of time - it has some curves and lumps that he’d overlooked in his hurry to finish. It’s roughly six feet in circumference and five feet at the top of the dome, making it a tight squeeze if they both wanted to be inside at once, but he could make it larger later if she wanted.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick is sitting in tall grass, her back resting against a boulder. Her M24 is in her arms, stock resting against her shoulder and scope pointed towards the valley below her.

It takes her awhile to calm down and even when she feels like she’s as calm as she can be, there’s still a flicker of rage smoldering in the center of her chest. That’s the bug trying to manipulate her, so she does everything she can to ignore it, so she won’t give it the satisfaction of getting on her nerves.

It’s difficult, not being alone all of a sudden. She’s so used to only having herself as company that having to pay attention to someone else’s needs and well being is like a completely new thing for her. She can barely remember how to be social besides the mere minimum of interaction she needs to have with shop owners in the settlements she visits.

She’s already exhausted by just the thought of making an effort again, even this soon after agreeing to let Cabernak join her on her mindless wandering through the wasteland. She’s so used to being able to shower herself in pity when she has a bad day - which waking up after an outbreak certainly is - and then feeling better about it later on. But self-pity is pathetic and having someone else near her just reminds her of exactly how much. She’s used to being surrounded by other people, sure, but not used to actually being noticed. And the way he looked at her before, like she was worth his time and not just another threat to be wary off…

It’s been a long time since someone did that. The last time she can remember someone looking at her for more than a minute without hatred or mistrust in their eyes was the last time she visited her brother.

Jeremy... Fuck, it’s been way too long since she saw him last. He’s probably going out of his mind with worry, especially since she promised him to return after the next outbreak, and that was five outbreaks ago. Her heart twists in her chest, a mix of guilt and longing making her breath shorten. She misses him so much. A year is too long to be away from him.

She takes a last look down the trail before deciding to go back towards Cabernak. It’s been about an hour now and she’s tired of soaking in her own thoughts. If the cave isn’t done cooling yet then to hell with it. She’ll just pass out outside it instead.

The trip back is painful, but funnily enough easier to make. The promise of the rest waiting for her makes it easier to ignore her body’s protests and push on through them. When the small opening for the cave appears in her line of sight, Nick can almost feel the soft fur of her bed roll rubbing up against her body.

Cabernak is right where she left him, lying uncomfortably still. It makes her nervous, but she holds her panic down as she slowly inches closer to him. She knows absolutely nothing about him, so assuming he’s dead before checking is silly.

She comes to a halt right outside the opening and holds her breath a little before turning her gaze in his direction. Her eyes run over his face and the part of his body she can see, picking out all the small weird details that makes him so different. Just looking at his face makes it perfectly clear that he’s as far from human as possible. Disregarding the black and red scales covering him from head to the point of his tail, the horns and the large teeth just barely visible in his slightly open maw, his eyes are enough to show their differences.

Nick checks the temperature of the cooling stone outside the cave before she leans her knees against it. She supports her body like that as she leans closer to Cabernak’s face, leaving only a few inches between them.

Up close his eyes are spectacular. Although they are open, she isn’t feeling like she’s being watched. The heavy, warm breath whistling out of his mouth is unhurried and relaxed, telling her that he’s probably in deep sleep. The complicated pattern of light blue and black covering most of his actual eye is what catches her attention first, but soon she’s looking at the ring of green around his pupil too before leaning back a little again to take it all in at once.

After a few moments of studying his eye, Nick’s flick down to look at his mouth. She had seen _something_ come out of it. Since it melted the stone, the only thing she can think of explaining it as is fire. Very, very hot fire. She’s still not completely sure how she’s supposed to react to the way he just _pushed_ a hole into the mountain like that. It literally looked like that to her. He breathed fire on it and then just disappeared into the liquid, red hot stone. She must admit to being terrified at first when he did that, and shocked at him appearing unharmed soon after, just casually pushing the melted stone out of the way.

He’s… _interesting_. It’s been a long time since something new happened, a long time since she found herself interested in someone. His optimism, while it at first seemed over the top and like it would annoy her greatly in extended periods of time, now feels like a fresh breath of air after she have had time to think about their meeting. She was a bit rough on him and she regrets that now. She knows it was wrong of her to treat him like just another inconvenience. Reacting like that to other people has become her default by now, and it makes her sad to admit. There were a time where she acted much like he did at first, with optimism and curiosity. Now, all she has is fear and loneliness. God, what happened to her?

A tight feeling appears in her belly as she continues to look at Cabernak sleep. She is responsible for him now. She agreed to take him under her wing and teach him her ways the second she allowed him to come with her. That means anything that happens to him is her fault and her responsibility to fix.

Her eyes flicker down his body, towards the tail she can’t see from where she stands. A heavy weight drops into the pit of her belly. She should look at it, make sure he didn’t get infected. She has no idea if he even can, but better safe than sorry. If they have to find materials to strap him down next time an outbreak happens, they need to hurry to the next settlement even more.

A few fingers run over her string of Tabs, her mouth silently counting how many dangles from her belt. Seven and a quarter. She should have enough for a few more ropes and provisions enough for the both of them for the next trip to the nearest Ruins in the South. But that means she can’t afford her meds this time and… She picks up the bottle from her belt pocket and shakes it a bit. As feared, only a few pills rattle inside it.

It’s fine. She’ll manage. They can go to the hospital. Only the strongest settlements go near it, and even they don’t go in, so she’s sure there’s supplies. If they’re sneaky and go in during the day, they might be able to get in and out without too much trouble from the ferals. Hopefully.

Satisfied with having a plan, Nick bends down to pick up her bag and the small bundle of wood lying on the ground outside the cave. She drops all of it through the crack leading into the cave before grabbing onto a ledge above it. She lifts her body in her arms and slide her legs through the hole. It should just be an easy slide all the way down the tunnel she can see. She should be thin enough to _just_ squeeze past Cab…

**Fuck** _._ She’s _stuck._

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

By the way Cabernak startles awake with a convulsive shudder, it can be assumed that he certainly did not expect to be jostled out of his sleep so soon. Like most Monsters non-native to Hotland, his close brush with Nick’s lower body temperature is disconcerting and causes him to freeze in place.

Her hips have gotten stuck where his neck widens towards his chest cavity, and when he snaps his head around to figure out what exactly is going on - nearly bonking her on the top of her head with the side of his jaw in the process - they end up roughly eyes to eye. His dorsal ridge flares to attention, and he emits a high-pitched, choked warble that cracks multiple times in his throat.

“I’ll uh,” he manages, trying to wriggle himself closer to the right side of the cave with very little success. A wave of mortification rolls over him as he feels what he believes are couple of his dorsal spines catching on her clothes.“L-let me uh, just-” He tries to move forward, but after a few jerky movements, he quickly realizes that he’s just as rightly stuck as she is.

“U-uh. Shoot. C-can you…?” Behind his nervous question is the sound of soft scuffing coming from below his chest where his wings are securely tucked. He can’t move them at all while he’s pinned, so it’s mostly up to her to get herself disentangled.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick is _mortified_ . As she stares into a now _awake_ Cabernak’s eyes, she feels a fit of hysteria approaching rapidly fast. Her face heats up when he starts speaking and wiggling, making their bodies press even closer to each other. She can feel herself get more and more stuck the more he moves around.

She needs to learn to _think_ before just doing things!!!

“I’m sorry! Shit, I thought I could sneak past,” she hurries to explain. She tries to get her footing, but her feet keep slipping on the smooth surface underneath them. The only way she can get the boost she needs to push herself out of the cave opening again is by stepping on Cabernak.

“Can you…” she nudges what she hopes isn’t a sore spot on his body with the tip of a foot and bends her head down in embarrassment. “I need a boost,” she mumbles into her chest. Her fingers claw uselessly at the ledge above her head she _just_ released and that is now half an inch outside her reach.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak isn’t too keen on this whole arrangement either, and he’d be cringing away if he had anywhere in the tunnel left to move. But, luckily enough for them both, there’s enough of his tail to hopefully salvage the situation.

“Yeah, uh, sure,” he agrees hurriedly. “I’ll try to uh, prop you… uh,” he cocks his head an arbitrary number of times as the fraction of tail nearby where Nick’s feet are moves. It’s hard for him to get an exact reading on where her feet are without being able to see them, and he ends up brushing his scales over her ankles on his first attempt.

“S-sorry! Sorry, shoot, I can’t tell,” he explains, spines flattening in distress as he tries to get a small fraction of his tail positioned under the flat of her boots. “U-uh, okay, little lower,” he mumbles to himself, trying again. He scrapes the wall for a moment before his tail nudges up against the base of something flat and definitely not stone. “H-how about now?”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

The second there is something solid under her boot, Nick pushes off against it, gaining the half inch of height she was missing. With her fingers now locked tightly around the ledge, she pulls herself upwards quickly. So quickly that she ends up tumbling over the edge and landing in a pile of awkward limbs in front of the cave.

She closes her eyes and hides her face under an arm, trying to ignore the evidence of the red hot embarrassment burning on her cheeks.

After a few moments to collect herself, she finally feels the exhaustion overtake her body like she have feared ever since waking up. The slightly paralysing effect of the bug that she’s been trying to hold off by never fully relaxing sets in, making the muscles in her legs feel numb and liquified. She’s now unable to stand up by herself for the next twelve hours.

Well, at least she’s not stuck anymore. That’s good, right?

Right.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

The cessation of his nerves with the sudden removal of Nick’s far-too-close presence is sadly temporary. As he witnesses the poor human tumble and sprawl itself along the ground, he releases a startled ‘eep’ that sounds entirely too high-pitched for a monster of his size.

“Are you okay!?” He’s at the entrance in a flash, hovering over the edge of the tunnel, wingclaws and chest barely dipping over the edge. It’s another handful of seconds before he edges out further, circling around the human below the makeshift stone ramp up to the cave and ignoring the chill of the day compared to the warmth of the stone from the still-cooling stone.

He doesn’t stop until he’s made a protective half-moon circle around her and can peer down with one eye at her face, checking for injuries. His wingclaws are poised uncertainly on either side of her head as he wonders what exactly to do.

“Y-you really shouldn’t do that,” he says in what he tries to play off as an admonishing tone, but his voice ends up wavering and spoiling the effect. “Humans are way too fragile to be tumbling down mountains and out of caves. A-are you hurt? Maybe… I can help?” His breath still smells and feels like a forge, but now it’s taken on a gritty, earthy aroma that wasn’t present before.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“It’s not like I do it on purpose,” Nick mumbles in embarrassment. She decides not to let him dwell too much on her failure and instead accept his offer for help.

“Can you just please drag me into the cave so I can sleep? I can’t move.”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

“Uh. W-what?” He clicks his mouth shut at her final words, cocking his head the other way so he can scrutinize her with his other eye to be _completely_ sure that she isn’t injured. Unfortunately, he can’t see much due to the sheer amount of clothing Nick is wearing - as well as the crusted blood covering her - but from what he can, she doesn’t seem to have suffered much more than a few superficial scrapes.

“...You can’t move?” He says slowly and with more than a little uncertainty. He pulls upwards for a moment, considering her as he taps his wingclaws together in an uneven rhythm a foot or so above Nick’s head. He knows he’s read somewhere that humans shouldn’t be moved after an accident if they can’t move on their own. Something about potential, serious spinal injuries. However, he’s somewhat bolstered by the fact that she’s acting like this is a regular occurrence… just as she had with the crazed phase she’d went through recently. She knows what she’s doing - she’s just not very good at explaining why she’s doing it.

He warbles with hesitance for a few more seconds before surrendering to her (hopefully) better judgement, and the conflicted sound finally segues into a puff of warm air that hisses through his teeth. “Okay,” he says, sounding defeated.

The decision seems to deflate him, as if the current predicament was the only thing keeping him awake. He still looks from her to the cave, trying to keep his mind working through the haze that’s threatening to settle back in. He can try to drag her into the cavern in the back like she’d asked him, but taking her all the way through the tunnel is out of the question - they had just proved that it’s too narrow for both of them to fit through at the same time.

“I can… I can maybe pull you to the front of the tunnel and push you in from there?” He suggests tentatively. “I’ve made the floor very smooth, so it shouldn’t be too hard… I think.” He cocks a belated eye at the slightly wavy, bumpy and overall uneven ramp that the escaped stone had created when he’d pushed it out. “...Uh. It might be… a little uncomfortable going up, though,” he admits contritely.

With a sigh, he leans his head down close to hers, breathing in the heady smell of iron that seems to perpetually waft from her. “I’ll pull you by the front of your shirt, okay? I promise I won’t bite you,” he reassures her.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“It’s fine,” she says in response to his many questions. He seems to ask an awful lot of them in rapid succession. She can barely get to answer one before the next one is thought up and asked. It makes her head spin to just think about. “Just get me to the entrance and I can drag myself in there,” she continues. She gets her elbows underneath her upper body and pushes away from the ground, sitting up. “It’s just my legs that have decided to go to sleep. No biggie.”

He does that thing again. The clicking of his claws and the lowering of his head. Nick doesn’t need to know how to read him to be able to feel the worry and confusion cascading off him in waves. Or maybe she is learning to read him. Fuck if she knows. Her brain is too tired to function properly.

“I’m going be fine,” she says, not knowing why. Maybe she wants to reassure him that she’s okay now. Maybe she’s trying to ease his discomfort. Or maybe she’s trying to convince herself that she’s okay. No matter what it is, she still finds herself following that promise with even more words that sound forced in the silence between them.

“Heh,” she laughs, her tone clearly suggestion how humorless she finds the situation. “I guess you have a bunch of questions that I’m not really doing a great job of answering.” She looks up at him with what she hopes is a somewhat friendly smile.

She feels her face twitching. Eh, close enough.

“I’ll explain stuff later, okay? I’ll answer whatever questions you have. Let’s just get to safety first and then we can talk.”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

When she props herself up, Cabernak is forced to move his face away to avoid getting bopped on the chin. For the first time in awhile, he doesn’t know what to say. Perhaps it’s the sleepiness talking, or the weird expression Nick is making up at him as she speaks. He honestly isn’t sure if it’s a smile or a scowl - it seems to ride a shaky line somewhere between the two.

“Okay,” he says with a bit more certainty at her promise of answers. Answers and sleep sound good to him right about now. “Uh, I guess I’ll pull you by the back, then.”

No sooner had he said this then he’s bending back down and nosing along the back of her shirt, finding a spot just beneath her short-cropped hair where the neck of the material opened out into skin. He carefully slips the curved, upper part of his maw into the space between the fabric and her skin and closes down on it. With a few inches of it locked in his jaws, he gives her shirt an experimental tug to make sure it’s secure before he begins the much more difficult process of dragging Nick along.

His species isn’t strong by any definition of the word, and Cabernak himself isn’t extraordinary amongst his kind in that sense. Even before she reaches the ramp, he’s already having a difficult time of towing her along the ground by her shirt, though it’s mostly due to his method. Incapable of moving backwards, he instead is forced to crane his neck around as he hauls her off to one side.

“HNNNNN,” comes the noise of strain as he heaves her up the ramp. It’s bad enough that he has his wingclaws scratching along the inside of the tunnel for any kind of purchase to facilitate the short ascent. He finds none, and instead ends up groping at nothing. There’s a snort of frustration.

“Hrny hern hrrnerns hrr _heyheyn_ ,” he gripes without opening his mouth.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“What?” Nick has absolutely no idea what he just said, but her confusion is again overshadowed by pain once again. Her knee knocks into the stone as her body rolls over a little before he can get her stabilized again, sending a painful stab through her leg. She bites her teeth together and endures it without making a sound. It’s just a bruise. She can handle it.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak pauses halfway up the ramp, releasing her shirt after she settles and allowing Nick to slowly slide back down the bottom half of the incline. His dorsal ridge is nearly flat against his back and the spines of his wings are mantled towards the ground in frustration.

“I’m sorry,” he says with a disgruntled sigh, looking away from her and folding his wings tightly against his body. He can’t seem to do anything right. “This uh,” he continues, sounding even more tired than before, “this isn’t working.”

He eyes the smooth stone of the ramp, imagining how easily he could lay down right there next to Nick and sleep the rest of the day away in the sun. He is so tired of thinking, and yet one more obstacle is always standing in his way before he can succumb to blessed unconsciousness.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

“What’s wrong?” Nick asks. A knot of worry forms in her gut. She doesn’t like the sudden dull tone in his voice or the way his body is sagging towards the ground.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak closes his jaw silently and tilts one eye between the ramp and the sky a few times as he thinks. “It’s-,” he looks to her and then back at the sky, pausing. The vastness of the blue overhead makes him feel infinitely small, so he glues the eye back to the wavy, nonuniform rock beneath them instead. “I messed up the gradient and… and you’re too heavy,” he replies in a defeated tone of voice.

“I don’t know what to _do_ ,” he admits, and there’s a lead weight to the words. “I said I could be useful but I’m just… not. But I’m trying,” he continues quickly with a twinge of the earlier fear in his voice returning. “I just don’t know _how._ ”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick can almost hear how he’s starting to lose it. She’s seen it plenty of times before. The harsh reality of the wasteland is tough to swallow at first and she has seen her fair share of Skuts to know what a fit of hysteria born from feeling insecure for too long looks like. She’s seen it enough in Jeremy alone to know when shit is about to hit the fan.

Maybe that’s why she feels her expression soften and hears her voice gain that smoother edge she recognizes as her “comforting big sister voice”. In this very moment, all she can see when looking at him is her brother.

“Cabernak…” she calls softly. “Hey, calm down. Of course you can’t be useful yet. You’ve no idea what you are doing. That’s the whole point of me teaching you, right?” Nick tries another smile. This time it feels like it works in the way it’s supposed to.

“If you can’t get me up there because I’m too heavy, then how about you just help make sure my legs don’t get cut open by lifting them up? I can walk up there on my hands and as soon as I’m at the edge I can handle myself. So you wouldn’t have to carry my entire body weight. Just my legs. How does that sound? Do you think you can do that?”

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak produces an uncertain, not-quite-warble in his chest at the unexpected reassurance. He cocks an eye back at Nick to study her face. He’s surprised to find her smiling; it even seems genuine, if a bit pinched from disuse. The gesture combined with her soft tones lifts some of his sullenness.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says slowly. “I can probably do that.”

He peers over at the backs of her legs, eyeing the fabric nearest her ankles. He turns back to the cave. Back to her ankles. The spines along his back ripple for a moment before he reaches up with a single wingclaw to scratch lightly behind the right side of his jaw.

“Okay, uh. Second time's the charm or something, right?” He turns off of the ramp and comes around behind Nick to hover his face over the fabric mostly covering her boots. “Here goes nothing.”

He comes in from above, and has to nudge the fabric around a bit with his wingclaws in order to get enough of it bunched up between her ankles to bite at. Even so, he briefly feels the texture of her boots underneath the material due to the scraping vibrations coming from his beak-like teeth. He gives the fabric another testing tug before he pulls upwards. It’s much easier this time, and the strain on his back is bearable, but he still waits for Nick to move before he does anything.

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

As soon as her legs are lifted up, Nick twists her body around so her belly is against the ground. Getting up on her arms is difficult but not impossible. The perk of preferring a rifle as her weapon is that she has been forced through training every day since she was able to pick her first one from her father’s collection. She has near perfect control over her arms, despite resting almost her entire body weight on them.

With a small grunt, she starts moving forward, feeling Cabernak follow closely behind.

The incline is steep and a little too smooth for her, but she only loses her grip twice before she’s within range of the entrance. A few more steps and another slide of her palm on some loose pebbles and she’s at a spot where she can reach the edge.

She leans to her right, allowing her right arm to take her weight. Before she lunges for the edge, she looks over her shoulder. “Let go,” she says. The moment Cabernak does she bends her right arm and “jumps” forward. Her fingers grab onto the edge and she lets out a small victory sound followed by a laugh.

Sleep is _finally_ within her grasp.

She’s fast and eager when pulling herself up to the edge and over it. It probably looks hilarious, the way she is wiggling like a worm to get her body through the entrance. She can feel her ass shaking back and forth, her legs being useless and numb on the outside, until suddenly her weight tips over to the other side of the edge of the entrance and she starts falling. Any other day she would have been embarrassed about the view Cabernak has of her ass on display like that, but right now she’s not. She writes it off as part him having shown absolute zero interest in her like that - unlike the men she always runs into in settlements - and part her being exhausted to the point of nothing but sleep holding some sort of value to her.

She manages to slide through the entrance “tube” with some sort of grace, even pushes her backpack and the small pile of sticks and wood in front of her. The second the actual cave appears, widening out from the tube, her body flops over and she rolls the last few feet until she comes to a stop in the center of the round-ish room.

She lies facedown for a long while, arms and legs lying in whatever positions they ended up in. She’s _so_ ready to fall asleep. It’s sort of warm in here, and despite the horrible stench of burned earth and rock, she’s more comfortable than she’s been in a long time. All she needs now is to get her bed roll out and get a fire going so she won’t freeze when night hits and then she’s going to pass the fuck out.

The thought alone makes her giggle, the prospect of getting the rest she so desperately needs has her in a sort of euphoric state. She just can’t stop feeling _happy_.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

Cabernak follows her movements closely and releases her on cue, gently settling her legs back on the ground so that she can easily-

He doesn’t expect the sudden lurch of movement and he jerks backwards a few inches in surprise as Nick pulls herself up to the tunnel entrance. He waits a few beats outside the hole in the ridge before the human’s laughter echoes from the inner cavern.

While making his way in, he feels an usual scrape along one side of the tunnel. Upon inspection, he spots a clear indentation his underside has made upon the not-quite-cooled section he’d previously slept on, marring a portion of the tunnel’s otherwise smooth flooring.

“Oops,” he murmurs to himself under his breath.

He sharply clicks his jaw shut, slides the rest of the way in silently and curls into a tight coil in the far side of the cavern. He’s careful not to accidently whap Nick in the face with the closed fan adorning his ever-so-slightly-raised tail as he passes. It’s actually pretty difficult, as Nick has sprawled herself in pretty much the central part of the cave and is taking up a disproportionate amount of the space.

Not that he minds, really. He’s actually quite good at being compact and out of the way when he wants to be.

What he _does_ mind, however, is the temperature: now that the heat from its creation has mostly dissipated, it’s rapidly becoming chilly in here. At the thought, he tucks his tail between a couple of the innermost coils to keep it warm. He knows from experience, however, that it won’t be this way forever. He just has to endure it until his own inner flame permeates the room. Or…

He leans forward, eyeballing the various sticks and woodchips littering the other side of the domed cavern… but mostly hovering his face over the back of Nick’s. The angle of his head catches a portion of the light trickling in from the outside, bathing his lower jaw in shadow and casting his eye in sharp relief in contrast to the nonreflective scales of rest of his face.

“Are you… uh,” he asks with more than a small amount of interest. “Are you going to start a fire? Do you want help?” His head tilts just a little more. “You look a bit uncomfortable. I don’t think Humans sleep on stone?”

* * *

**_Mercy_ **

Nick sighs heavily, the last few tickles of her laughter dying out. The faster she gets her bed roll out, the faster she can sleep, so she better get started.

“Yeah I was gonna do that,” she answers him before rolling over so she can sit up. “But sure, you can help. Knock yourself out. Just please make it around the middle so I can feel the heat a little bit.” She grabs her backpack and pulls the bed roll off it. After untying the straps keeping the bed roll rolled up, she spreads it out next to her, near the wall of the cave. Once it’s ready for use she spreads the furs and drops her backpack next to it before she rolls over to lie on it. She tugs the fur over her body and sighs happily.

For a few minutes she snuggles into the furs, a soft purring noise surrounding her. Then she decides to see how Cabernak is doing with the fire. Her eyes start to feel heavy seconds later.

* * *

**_Shiv_ **

At Nick’s acceptance, Cabernak busies himself with gathering all the sticks and woodchips he can find into the center of the little cavern. He’s surprisingly dainty with his wingclaws when plucking individual sticks from the ground and stacking them against each other, and soon enough he’s created a lopsided teepee of wood. The rest of the chips he brushes along the ground with the edge of his wing until they’re comfortably settled at the base. He lays his head nearly flat against the stone for a moment in order to carefully usher them underneath the sticks without toppling the whole arrangement.

All but one stick he’d set aside.

This one he plucks and holds between two wingclaws much like a cigarette, eyeballing it like it’s offended him in some fashion. He looks back to Nick - who’s busy purring like a catfolk monster in her bedroll - before he cranes his neck and breathes a small amount of his magic at the very tip of the stick. Just a lick of flame rolls off his tongue and catches on the wood, but it’s enough to completely blacken the edge of the stick instantly. Luckily, it seems to catch a bit lower in a natural red-orange glow despite the top two inches already flaking away into ash. He pushes the stick into the base of the teepee where the woodchips rest, and is rewarded by a few catching and curling as the flame overtakes them.

He curls around his tiny, glowing creation protectively and admires it from above, nictitating membranes sliding over his eyes as faint curls of smoke rise from the cone. Such small flames, but still so warm. He’s glad to have gotten it right - even now the bottoms of the sticks are licking with tongues of fire, and the crackling of the wood permeates the cavern in a series of hisses and pops.

The soft warmth and noises are familiar and peaceful, stirring up memories of a time when he was younger; before he was named. He rests his head between two layers of his tail and sighs softly through his nose, losing himself and allowing the exhaustion to overtake him in a smothering wave. So many memories of kindness from those he’d never met. Memories of happiness and hope and comfort. Of _love._ Pure, unconditional love so strong that it makes his soul sing; gentle touches and the sound of a woman’s voice singing him to sleep.

The tension leaves his body, and Cabernak succumbs to the peaceful thoughts. His breath comes in slow wafts through his teeth. Not quite asleep but no longer awake, he drifts in a mindless limbo with one eye catching the hypnotizing dance of the flame.

* * *

 

 

_End of part one_

**Author's Note:**

> We hope you enjoyed! You are very welcome to leave your thoughts in the comment section, but be aware that we will not tolerate any negative hate comments. Be nice please :)
> 
> Until next time!


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